Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers - Listener Episode #7: Crab Beauty Pageants & Lower Deck Days

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Another listener episode! This week Seth and Josh listen to voicemail stories about our listeners’ family trips! From crab beauty pageants, to country boys chasing tires, to lower deck days, tune in to the episode to hear all the hilarious family trip stories from the fans! AirbnbFamily Trips is supported by Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much more at airbnb.com/host to learn about hosting. Delete MeToday get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/TRIPS and use promo code TRIPS at checkout.

Hi Poshie. Hi Sufi. How are you? I'm good, how are you? Good, I'm really good because I got my Posh hat back. Yeah, explain please. Yeah, I was leaving Flagstaff wearing my Posh hat and I should know it, so I have a Posh hat and the reason I have a Posh hat, anyone who listens knows I call my brother Posh, there was a cake shop in the West Village in New York City called the Posh cake shop and I guess maybe a couple years ago I was walking by and they had a bunch of hats. And I said, well, I'm gonna go in and buy a Posh hat.

And it's a purple hat with neon pink script that says Posh. And I love it, get a lot of compliments on it. Not Alexi's favorite hat, just on color. Just on color. Yeah. She's not anti-Posh, but she doesn't love the, you know. Fair enough. And I wore it to draft weekend,

and everybody thought I had it made, and everybody was really excited and wanted more, but the cake shop doesn't make them anymore. So it's a one in a million at this point. And I was in a car, going from Flagstaff to the Phoenix airport, got out, left my hat in the car. Thought it was gone forever. Yeah.

And did some leg work, got in touch with the driver, got him to send me the hat. Huge. Huge news. Huge, huge victory. Yeah. Can't tell you how happy Alexi was when she unboxed that hat. It would have been a great unboxing video if you gave it to her and was like, I just want to film you. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been a great unboxing video if you gave it to her and was like, I just want to film you.

Cause she would have been excited thinking, why are you filming me? And then the disappointment. And the day before I would have told her, hey, I lost that hat. Yeah. And then she would have also put her in good mood that she would have thought the hat was gone.

Yeah. I went to SoFi Stadium for my first time. Wow. What'd you see at SoFi? I saw Green Day. Oh wow. Who I don't think I've ever seen somehow, but I mean, I've loved them forever. And, but I was like, trying to figure out,

is there a good way, is there a good place to park where I'm not gonna sort of get raked over the coals? And there's this website or this app called Spot Angels. And I was like, there's this little neighborhood and they say you can park anywhere up here. It's all like green. It's like, you can park for four days. And I went with my buddy Devin and I was like,

do you mind maybe walk in 20 minutes? And I think we're gonna get out faster cause we won't get buried in parking. And he's like, sure. So we pull into this little neighborhood, signs everywhere that say no stadium parking, tow away, you gotta have this permit otherwise. So the app has let you down immediately.

App really let me down. And then the next thing it said is, next best thing is parking at the Forum and that's gonna be 25 bucks. So I'm like, all right, we go, there's a left-hand turn. It's like SoFi and forum parking. We get in the lane for forum parking. And then there's a sign that says, forum parking sold out. You got to have a pre-printed pass.

Gotcha. So it's going bad. It's going bad. Then I get in the SoFi parking line and you're just sorta like, you're railroaded at this point. There's no getting out of it. There's like four lanes. And you get up to pay the person.

What do you think it costs to park at SoFi? Well, if the form was 25 and SoFi is prohibitively expensive. I will say 27.50. $125. Geez Louise. And the woman with the little like, you know, machine to take my credit card.

I was like, what? And she's like, it's not me. And I was like, oh, I know it's not you. But we had to do that. And then we had to walk all the way around SoFi because one of these gates were closed. And, but man, Green Day is so good. They play Dookie all the way through,

and then they play American Idiot all the way through. And I somehow, I know American Idiot better than I know Dookie. All the way through is a top to bottom, listen. And they're great. It was awesome. And caught the end of the pumpkins. We were sort of like a bit waylaid from all this. Oh, the pumpkins opened.

Yeah, pumpkins opened. Also there was a, we were in section B2 and in front of us was section A2. And there was this post during the pumpkins saying A2. But as I'm looking at the stage, I have to like lean to my left to see Billy Corgan. And I'm like, this is an obstructed view seat. Like this is unacceptable.

And I'm taking pictures and between the two things, between the two shows, Devin has gotten food. He's now joined me. I point this out to him, I'm like, this is gonna be a problem. I'm gonna be really angry about this. And I take a video and I have every intention in this moment of suing Ticketmaster.

Yeah. Because this is an obstructed view seat. This is a new thing. Yeah, 100%. I'm looking forward to the, I think it's gonna be season two of Presumed Innocent. It's gonna be this trial. Yeah, but I was fired up and I was- Yeah, no, I've been with you during one of these firings.

Yeah, and it seemed like a slam dunk case to me. I was gonna be the dude that brought down Ticketmaster. Can I predict what I think happened? Sure. It was just a guy dressed like a post and he moved. Close. The post was on a little like a spinny thing and right when the show started they spun it and it dropped down to sort of a normal person's mid-back height.

So it was just letting people know where the seats were. Yes. Ah, that's very novel. So very high, well-marked, this is section A2, but then when the show starts, they bring it down. Yeah. Although I will say disrespect to the Pumpkins to have it up during their set.

Oh, okay. Yeah, if it was up during their set, I agree. That is disrespect. But maybe not enough to bring your full legal force down on Ticketmaster? No. I wish I was there to get a video of you watching how wrong you had been and then I would have sent that to ticketmaster Like if this guy ever shows up with a summons Yeah, I Something happened that I I never cared for but I was only I

Believe only on the ground for 16 hours in Los Angeles. I did not see you. Oh yeah, I didn't even know you were coming to town. Well yeah, I had to come lose my Emmy. But landed and went straight to the hotel, got straight, got put on my tuxedo. I will say the win of the day, Steelers 2-0, so I'll take that. Yeah.

And then went to the Emmys, a lovely time. Got to present with Bo and Yang and Kristen Wig and Maya Rudolph, which was a delight. I hear it was super fun. It was really, it was a good bit. And they're obviously the best to be in that four shot is an honor and delight. Lost our Emmy, totally fine.

And then, yeah, got on a 6 a.m. flight home. Wow. And, yeah. And a shout out to not the way George Miller wants you to watch it. I had not seen Furiosa. I still haven't either. Oh, I mean, go see Furiosa. I mean, I know it's too late to see it in the theater, but at least watch it on a TV.

I watched it over the course of two days on two different airlines. You know? Loved it. And I love Fury Road, so I don't know why I waited so long for Furiosa, but great. Yeah. Well, I, Mackenzie had a little bridal shower.

A bunch of the people at the barn had a sort of nice shower, a bunch of the people at the barn had a sort of nice dinner night evening with her. Her sister was in town, so they went after that. And I was like, I'm going to watch this Napoleon, this, uh, Oh yeah. Walking Queen Phoenix.

And I went online because as soon as I pulled it up, it was like, do you want to watch the theatrical or you want to watch the director's cut? And I was like, I don't know. And all the sort of things said the director's cut? And I was like, I don't know. And all the sort of things said the director's cut was better. So I did a three and a half hour Napoleon. I loved it.

Great. I loved it. All right, look at this. Now this is a new segment where you just are getting loose wrecks from Posh and I. Just kind of loose wrecks. Hey, it's a listener episode. And since you've been listening to us just go on and on.

We would like to listen to you. Oh, real quick, somebody on Instagram said, I can't believe you got bullied out of doing my favorite part of the show. And I think that in this case, you're the bully. So we're going to listen to our listeners. But first, why don't you listen to Jeff Tweedy. Family chips with the Myers Brothers. Family chips with the Myers Brothers. Here we go.

We've done this before. We're just going to drop in a listener story and let's all enjoy it together. First time Josh and I have heard it. Hi, my name is Joe. I live in Playa del Rey, California, but grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I'm the youngest of five kids, one older brother, three older sisters, and our family trip every year was going to the Jersey Shore for a week. A little backstory before the story. my mom signed us up for everything.

Even if we didn't want to do it, she signed us up. Not because she was trying to live her life through us to compensate for that time she got the polio and the great Boston outbreak in the summer of 52. She just didn't want us to miss out on anything. This particular story took place in 1986. We were staying in Ocean City, New Jersey. I was very intent on buying a hermit crab that year and convinced my parents that I needed two of

them. One small little fast one that I named Spud's McKenzie after my favorite alcoholic dog, Spud's McKenzie. And a larger, lazier one named Checkers because he had a checkered shell and at seven years old that shit made a lot of sense. Anyway, that summer I saw a flyer for a hermit crab race on the boardwalk and I was jazzed to the max. My mom glanced at the flyer and what she saw was something called the mis-crustacean beauty pageant. She of course then mentioned this to my sisters

to get them to compete. They declined immediately, but my mom would not have it. Now my grandmom was a seamstress and I'm pretty sure she made their outfits by hand, which added to the pressure my mom was already putting on them. It was a full court press of Italian guilt, which I like to refer to as the Gavel Ghoul. On the day of the big race and the pageant, my mom dragged my sisters in full makeup and handmade gowns to the boardwalk, where we soon found out that the Mistrustation beauty pageant was for hermit

crabs, not human people. Now, of course, my sisters were completely embarrassed, but I was there to win a goddamn race and I couldn't let anything break my focus. You might be wondering how exactly does a hermit crab race work? Well, a bunch of nerds put their little crabs on a table inside of a plastic cage. Think of it like a tiny UFC octagon, but circular and instead of two dudes in board shorts, it's a bunch of hermit crabs. Now the idea is that they lift up this little crab prison and the first one to crawl past the finish

line wins. I should note the finish line is also a circle because hermit crabs have no spatial awareness. Okay, back to the race. There are probably 20 to 30 hermit crabs on this table and they all look alike. But it doesn't matter. I'm a father. I know my children. On your marks, get set, go. The head nerd lifts up the cage.

Spuds is immediately attacked by a larger hermit crab holding him back. Now I know what I'm about to say will sound made up, but I swear on my seamstress grandmother, this happened. Checkers pulled out his big claw and pinched the big bully crab, freeing his little brother. Spuds then took off and booked it past all the other crabs, reaching the finish line, in my opinion, first. But as you can imagine, there was no photo finish. So Spuds ended up taking second.

I learned some valuable lessons that day. The world can be brutally unfair, second place ribbons are red, and that unless you're in Florida, a mis-Crestation beauty pageant is probably about forcing a crab to wear a dress, not a person. Love the podcast guys.

Oh, and Josh, your songs at the end are fantastic. Please don't ever stop. Thank you, Joe, what a story. I mean, that's like, I don't know, you want that to be a short film or it feels like a Mark Twain story. It's too strange and wonderful and... I mean, three older sisters in homemade gowns, accidentally showing up for a crab beauty pageant, where then the only move is to say, no, we know we just dress up for crab races. Like if you garbage people.

Like people used to. Yeah, if you garbage people want to show up in your flip flops and street clothes, fine. But this used to be an occasion. Was there a race for hermit crabs as well as a beauty pageant for hermit crabs? It is one of, this is one of those problems where you wish Joe was here in person

because I do, I will say as good as his story was, I do have some follow-ups. Yeah, but I mean, but that's, that's great. Cause he, cause I was wondering, oh, are all, are all the crabs in the race gonna be dressed up in crazy costumes? But it turns out, no. Yeah.

I'm gonna, you know, we haven't done this before. If Joe can just reach out and- Joe, let us know. Let us know. Was there also a hermit crab beauty contest? Who won that? And how much, I also have a question. How much did you pay for the hermit crabs?

Yeah, don't you just find those? Yeah, that's what I would have thought. If someone was like, I mean, like, if my kid was like, I really want a hermit crab, I'd be like, best of luck. I mean, I wouldn't say like, all right, let's head on down to the pet store. But I guess, you know, again, this is Jersey Shore. I bet there's a lot of people listening

going to the Jersey Shore. They're like, the first thing you do is buy the kids crabs. Then they're good for the whole summer. That was before Tamagotchi's. That's how you knew your kid could be a parent one day. Could you get the crabs through the summer? Yeah, I mean, it must just be a similar thing to like goldfish.

It's like, oh yeah, these things are a quarter. I'm very proud of checkers looking out for spuds. I did not think this kind of crab would care for one another. You know why? Why? Because they're hermits. You know, kind of famously, famously solitary. Do you think maybe the race also in their head is like,

I just got to get away from all these other crabs. Right. Yeah, right, you're right. I've gotta get to somewhere where I'm just like, alone with my thoughts. Yeah. I'm gonna race to the airy. I've never been to like a small animal race.

Like I know they have like pig races sometimes. I've seen like videos of that. I wanna say, like these kinds of things happen and these kinds of things I think always sound like great fun. I, you know what, I, Martha's Vigil does a crab race. Oh really? Yeah, they do a crab race during, during fleet week.

And it's, and that is a sort of big square, think of like a big wooden pallet where there's like six rows and they put the crabs at the end of each row. So each crab has their own individual shoot to run across. And I don't think they enjoy it based on their attitudes, but you know what, they're always so crabby.

I think I apologize for everybody heard that joke. That was specifically for our mom. Yeah. You're like, he went to the mark on that one, Seth. I hit one exactly where I wanted to. Yeah. Also as a real quick sort of family trip, our parents famously once went to Florida

and they were looking for a restaurant to go to and there's a restaurant called Krabby Bills. Yeah. And for whatever reason, mom didn't wanna go there and she took on a real childlike persona and kept saying to him, I don't want to go to Krabby Beals. And that, that is sort of- So now when somebody is being fussy in our house,

they're being a Krabby Bill. Yeah. By the way- Krabby Beals might be a fine, wonderful restaurant. Might be a fine establishment. Also, I'm pretty confident when that happened with them, we were in our 20s, if not our 30s. Oh yeah, yeah.

That's a very, that's a very late breaking story. This is, we were not children. And yet we still are like, she'll be like, ugh, your dad's being a real Krabby Bill. Yeah. And by the way, my brother-in-law, Zach, his parents, Bill and Kathy, are fantastic. And, and my, and my mom, mom literally goes,

oh, it's Krabby Bill. I'm like, you can't call him Krabby Bill just because his last name's Bill. It's not Krabby atrabby Bill just because it's his last name, it's Bill. Not Krabby at all. Yeah, also it's his first name, but. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And now we're gonna take a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors.

Family Trips is supported by Airbnb. Hey, Pashi. Yeah, Sufi. You know we have an annual trip. Yeah, we sure do. We get a couple regular trips, but which trip are you talking about? I'm talking about the fact that you and I and 10 of our closest college friends get together

every September for our fantasy football draft. It's such a trip. And very little of the trip is about a fantasy football draft. Yeah, I always feel a little nerdy saying we're going on a fantasy football draft, but we're going to hang out with our buddies. Yeah, that's why I say it's a fantasy friendship draft. Would that make it less nerdy, or is that making it worse? No, I think it's charming.

It's sweet. So this year for our fantasy friendship draft, we have a fantasy location booked. And it's all thanks to Airbnb. We found a place that has enough space for all of us and enough bedrooms for all of us and has a lot of outdoor activities. A fire pit.

There's a fire pit, Pachi. There's a fire pit. I want to say there's a volleyball court. Yep. There's a pickleball court. There's a lot. It's driving distance to a hospital that a bunch of 50-year-old guys are gonna have to go to

when we blow our ACLs. Yeah. But in general, it is so nice that it has all the things that we could not get with our group at a hotel. Oh, absolutely not. Because what you want is you wanna be able to hang out together for as long as you can, and then if it's time to go to bed, you go to bed,

but everyone else is sort of in the same place. And one thing that we're sort of focused on on trips like this is no new friends. No new friends. We don't want to meet them. We don't want to make them. We're happy with who we are. And maybe you're someone who's thinking, you know what?

My home could be a great get together for old friends who are not looking to meet new people. You've put a lot of time, effort, and work into your home and someone out there would probably love to experience it while they're traveling. And then they would rave about how it was the highlight of their trip. Your home might be worth more than you think.

Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Here we go. All right, you guys, let's hear our next story. Thank you, Joe. Amazing, Joe, thank you. Hi, my name is Cindy from AirG Alberta, Canada. I love the Family Trips podcast. There's just enough humor to delight me

and I love the glimpses into the lives of people that you kind of know from TV and movies. So about me, I grew up on a mixed farm ranch in Southern Alberta, number four of five kids. There were six years between the oldest and the youngest, and that's a story in itself. We were all toddlers together, teenagers together, got married within a few years of each other,

had our kids close together. We're all grandparents now, and the next stage is coming. We did just one big family trip, all seven of us, in a station wagon to California in December 1967. This was before seat belts were required in cars. So we had a foam mattress behind the seats and one or two kids would hang out back there. Our luggage was all piled on the roof rack along with the spare tire. Think Beverly Hillbillies. A few stories about that trip.

We didn't have a ton of money, or maybe my dad was cheap, so we'd pile into one motel room, kids sharing beds, and we'd use that foam mattress from the car for a couple of kids on the floor. When we were approaching LA, I think we hit a bump or something. The spare tire bounced off the roof rack and went rolling down the side of the highway and then into the grassy median. Dad stopped the car and yelled at my two older brothers, who were I think 11 and 12 at the time, to chase after the tire and bring it back. If you had tried to get that tire to roll, it probably would have gone 15, 20 feet.

But when you wanted to stop, it just kept rolling and rolling. So here are these two little country boys running down the median of an LA freeway, desperate to grab the tire. The story ended happily with the tire retrieved, back on the roof rack, and on we went. When my parents died a few years ago, we found all of mom's travel journals. She'd log every penny we spent on those trips. Driving from Canada to California in return, total cost for gas was $113.51. It cost us $11.25 for Disneyland, plus souvenirs and food for a grand total of $20.08 for a family of seven. My husband and I are planning a road trip this winter.

My hubby has finally been cleared to travel into the U.S. and that's another story for another time. We're hoping to find a small motor home, head to California, across the Southern states to Florida, and then back north to get home to Western Canada. We'll be visiting some friends and family along the way and hoping to cross a few things off our bucket lists. For me, I want to see the Grand Canyon. Sorry, Seth, I just do.

That's all right. That's all right. Look, I've been now. I get it. That's all right, that's all right. Look, I've been now, I get it. I totally get it. I think what you and your husband should do, Cindy, is you should take a road trip, but you should try to only spend what you spent on your trip with seven people. So you can go from Alberta to a different part of Alberta.

Once you hit like $140, you have to turn around and go home. Yeah. A tire, like a car tire, a spare tire, I feel like for, I mean, I don't know, I'm trying to get a good sense of, I don't have a good sense of what an 11 or a 12-year-old is capable of, but I guess country boys in Alberta have probably been raised to be a little tough. If you've been raised on a farm, you've chased a tire.

Yeah, or you could lift a tire. You've done some lifting. Yeah, you could definitely lift a tire. But I'm imagining two boys of that age. Like, us. Yeah, we'd be lift a tire. But I just, I'm imagining two boys of that age. Like, us. Us. Yeah, we'd be like, dad. Yeah. That tire's gone, man.

Yeah, but like- It's over. If I had to lift a tire right now for my car, just, I guess you roll it back. But, oh my God, it took you that long to come to the conclusion that you would roll a tire back? I think that's like, truly the dumbest thing to see would be somebody

walking down the side of a highway carrying a tire. Well, it would be two people, Seth. Yeah, it would be two people carrying a tire, which is maybe even more unwieldy. Have you ever switched into, switched to spare? Yeah, yeah. You know my spare tire story. Yeah, I do.

You want to tell the people? I mean, I've told it before, but we, we got a flat tire before we have kids. I'm driving, winter, freezing cold. We're outside a diner and a frisbee, tiny frisbee, wearing a sweater. Yeah, wearing a sweater vest. With all the Italian grayhounds.

And we don't have service. We're not in the middle of nowhere, but we're just in a weird like no service spot. Yeah, but it's nice though that cars all have like a spare tire and then like the tire iron in there. It was all there. Yeah, he got all the gear. So you're all set.

By the way, even Alexi knew that was not the right outcome, but she went inside and said, hey, can we use your phone to call AAA? And they were like, oh, what's wrong? She's like, oh, we got a flat tire. And then some guy sitting at the diner was like, you got a spare? And she's like, I'm pretty sure we got a spare.

He goes, I'll go out and change it. And so he walked out and obviously he thought this was a damsel in distress. And instead he walked out and I was sitting in the driver's seat playing Scrabble on my iPad. And he was like, oh, hey, I'm like, hey. He goes, I'm gonna change the tire. I'm like, oh, great.

And then he got the stuff out. And then he was like, then he came back. He's like, you gotta get out of the car. I'm like, oh, okay. There's a picture of you holding your seven pound dog. We can't all be raised on farms in Alberta. We were raised in New Hampshire and dad taught me how to change a tire.

Well, yeah, he taught us how to change a tire. Use the F word in every single. Conjugate, literally listen, dad changing a tire was conjugating the F word. Very Christmas story. I do love Cindy's plan to sort of get an RV and drive and stop and see people is just, it's the best. When I drove cross country, I would stay with people and I would show up right around dinner time. I would be shown to a room

where I would be a guest for a night. We would have dinner and then I'd be tired from driving all day. We'd maybe like, you know, sit around, have a drink. I wouldn't want to drink too much because I'd be driving the next day. And these were all strangers and it was done at gunpoint. No, these were, this was Denny.

You're like, now we're going to have a drink? This was Rob. We're going to play a couple of games. This was Rob Fancher's parents in Des Moines. Oh, that's good. This was my buddy, Mark Cottrell, who was with his wife's family in St. George, Utah. And did you map it out?

Did you sort of push pins on maps before? Yeah. Like these were where I'm going to hit. That's really cool. And then in the morning, people were like, well, we have to go to work in the morning. And I was like, well, great. I have to drive to Iowa or I got to get to Northern Pennsylvania. So let's have some coffee and then we'll be on our merry way. And it was it was just lovely. So I wish you guys a great trip and thanks for the story, Cindy.

Thank you, Cindy. I think we've got one more story. Is that right, Sam? Yep, that's right. I wanna get Sam in here, you know. And that's my contribution, yep. We're just getting just enough Sam to whet people's interest and appetite.

Yeah, Sam's been called out previously for not catching when we had, was it siblings? Siblings, yeah. People are really hard on Sam when it's obviously, you know, we've been here for every episode too. Well, they called us out and they called Sam out, which I think was a new thing for her. Yeah, it was, yeah. You know, I can handle it. It keeps me on my toes. Absolutely. We don't blame you. If you can't stand the heat, don't produce a podcast. All right, here's our last story.

Hi, Seth and Josh. My name is Allison and my sisters Susan and Debbie and I love your show. I was in Seth's class at Northwestern, but unfortunately I never met either of you while we were there. I live in Tampa now and my sisters live in DC and Chicago.

We took many family road trips when we were kids, so here's a story about the first one we took. Our mom and dad grew up in Chicago and moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin for work. At the time of this story, in the mid-80s, I was 12, my middle sister was 9, and my youngest sister was 5. We'd never been anywhere but Wisconsin and Chicago. Our dad had a two-day conference in Boston, so we drove in our family minivan

all the way out to Massachusetts. The trip had the usual components of a Massachusetts tour, Plymouth Rock, the Freedom Trail, Cape Cod, et cetera. But as landlocked Midwesterners, the event we most looked forward to was a whale watch to see real whales in real life. We had never been on a boat other than a canoe in the Mississippi River, so we were so excited about going out into the

Atlantic Ocean. The morning of the trip we were up early in anticipation and we could hear the other hotel guests and workers in the hallways and outside as they called to each other. It looks like a lower deck day we heard one person say. What could that mean we thought? Maybe lots of whales we could see up close? We had a small breakfast of Cheerios at the hotel and headed down to the dock. A cool breeze picked up and waves crashed against the pier. We smelled the salty sea air and we could not contain our excitement. We couldn't believe our luck.

Four hours on a whale watch tour. For sure we'd see whales. As the boat chugged away from the shore, my sisters and I ran from one side of the rail to the other, to the bow, wind in our hair and faces, taking in all of the sights and sounds of the sea. It was just as we had imagined. And after about 45 minutes, we reached the spot where the captain thought we might see some whales. The boat bobbed in the rough seas as we waited.

It pitched and rolled. An hour went by. The sun got higher and it felt hot. We started to look at each other with every sideways motion of the boat, feeling worse and worse. We were pale and sweaty as the boat heaved in the waves. No whales in sight. At that point, we had split up. My mom consoled my two younger sisters, and I had my head down on my dad's knee, struggling to keep it together. What time was it? Only two hours had gone by? We still had two hours left? Then the captain made an announcement

that the ship's concession was serving their special jelly donuts, and people walked by, eating them casually, like they were standing in line for their coffee at Dunkin'. That was too much for me, and I found out what a lower deck day meant. As I hung over the rail with many other passengers, I saw those Cheerios from breakfast again.

My mom and one of my sisters succumbed as well. My mom dramatically hang on to my youngest sister's windbreaker to keep her from going over the side as she threw up. Eventually some whales did show up, but no one cared anymore. We just needed to get back on the solid ground. A long hour later, the boat arrived back into port. We kissed the earth when we finally disembarked. And to add a final insult to injury, our minivan smelled like seawater for the next seven years that we headed to remind us daily of our infamous whale watch trip. Love the show.

Oh my God. Thank you, Allison. Go cats. We'll start with that. Go cats. I mean, we went whale watching as well. And it is not. I mean, I feel like my takeaway is I remember dad kept saying what it was just a huge scam. Yeah. And I think I also gave myself, my sense of whale watching would be the entire whale would come out of the water.

Right, you want to see a breach. I'd been SeaWorld spoiled. Yeah. And instead it's just sort of like the back of a whale. That like goes under you, and I suppose if it wants to tip you, maybe could tip you. But yeah, those, we've been on those whale watches

and they are longer than they need to be. And also it's, you know, unless you're truly in some majestic place, once you see a couple of whales, that's kind of it. Yeah. I mean, I've talked about the fact that we went on safari. The same is true of giraffes. The first giraffe you see is mind blowing.

Yeah. The fourth giraffe you see is now just like a deer. Ha ha ha. Like that's the speed, you know what I mean? Like again, if you saw a giraffe in New York City, giraffe you see is now just like a deer. Like that's the speed, you know what I mean? Like again, if you saw a giraffe in New York City, it'd be fantastic. But like you see a giraffe where all the giraffes are, you just kind of get used to it. And I feel like the same is true of whales.

There were, there was a real, two summers ago, there were, everybody wanted to see whales. My whole summer was like my father-in-law being like, they spotted whales. And there was a lot of like taking a boat out and just like, just like sort of looking around for whales. And being seasick. Yeah, I remember we went out on the boat

on Martha's Vineyard, ostensibly looking for whales. And we came across a pod of dolphins. Yeah. And there were like hundreds of them. It was amazing. And your son, Ash kept being like, I wanted to see whales. Yeah.

And dolphins are so much better than whales. That was a big drag. It was amazing. It was like, it was fascinating. It was so cool. You know, we cut the engine and you could just, we were surrounded. It was amazing.

Were you on, I went on a boat in Scotland and I don't know if you were with me, maybe it was just Mackenzie and I, but we had like taken some trip and it was like a dolphin sighting boat trip. And on the picture, there were like, there was a boat moving with all these people leaning into the wind and all these dolphins

out of the water with the same lean as the people. And you were like, oh, this is gonna be amazing. And we saw zero and they said, well, we will give you half off your next boat tour if you wanna do it again. And it was like, no you half off your next boat tour if you want to do it again. And I was like, no. Half off the next one. Yeah.

But then I will say, because we went on a boat in Loch Ness. Yes. And we did see the monster. So you've been. Yeah. We did not strike out that time. Yeah. She's down there.

Since we're talking about whales, you know, and again, sometimes people will say, do you have a, what's your hidden talent? People will ask me that during like a Q and A. And I always say like, if I, well, I'm not hiding anything. I'm doing four shows a week. Right. If I had one. You have a good answer though. And since we're talking about whales,

you and dad have this weird genetic inheritance where you can echolocate. Well, we can like, it's more of a dolphin, but it's a dolphin click. All right, so Josh now, Josh is doing this with his mouth. And I can't do it. Yeah.

And it's been a great frustration to me. And the two of them, the way they explain it to me is just, explain how you do it. It's the inside, it's the side of my tongue on the upper part of my teeth. And I'm sort of inhaling, but slow, not inhaling, just. It vibrates off the inside of my teeth, the side of my tongue.

And I'm sure there are people out there that can do it, but it is one of those strange things that dad could do and I could just do. Yeah. I don't think we like worked on it. No, I don't think he worked on it either. He worked on my last nerve. Was that our second? That was our last story.

That was our last story. Great stories. Yeah. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Allison. Allison, Cindy, Joe. Also, Allison's car smelled like seawater for seven years. I will say I was not, seven years is a very funny culmination of that sentence

because I sort of thought weeks. Seven years is, I mean, I kind of feel like maybe you guys didn't like, I don't know, desalinate well before you got back into the car. Yeah, is that just like a car from Wisconsin that's never seen the ocean has, is porous in a way that can take on a seawater smell and never replace it with anything else.

My nightmare. And I like a point A to point B, ferry ride, sign me up. Yeah. We're gonna take a boat out for two hours, then we're gonna come two hours back, sign me out. Just, I feel trapped, man. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I feel like you do that to a degree on a regular. All the time. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I suffer quietly on the bow of the ship. You're going. The bow's the front push. I learned that. You're going nowhere. Good one, there you go.

Yeah. And now we're gonna take a quick break to hear from You're going nowhere. Good boy. There you go. Yeah. Now we're going to take a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors. Support comes from DeleteMe. Hey, Poshie. Yeah, Sufi. Have you or someone you know been a victim of identity theft, harass, stalked, doxed?

Has that happened to someone you know? It hasn't happened to anyone I know specifically, but anyone you hear about it happening to says it's maybe the worst thing that's ever happened to them. I think it's a huge drag when someone takes your identity because they almost never do something with your identity that you would like them to do. No one has ever like steals your identity and then go takes like tap lessons and then you know tap.

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you want deleted, and their experts take it from there. Take control of your data, keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Today get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteeme.com slash trips and use promo code trips at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is go to joindeleteeme.com slash trips and enter code T-R-I-P-S at checkouts.

That's joindeleteeme.com slash trips code. Tell them, Poshie. Trips. I really feel like you almost deleted me from that whole ad. Yeah. I just can't, you know, sometimes I'm just rolling, Poshy. Trips. I really feel like you almost deleted me from that whole ad. Yeah. I just can't, you know, sometimes I'm just rolling Posh and you're just, you know what? You know what you are?

Expendable? And an anchor. All right. We, I think we have some, we have some cues that we're going to provide some A's to if you want to roll one of those, Sam. Greetings from beautiful Cambria, California. Josh, come on up and visit. It's a short drive from LA.

My name is Larry and hearing the discussion and the befuddlement that Seth had over Josh's blind spot about the show Friends, the now worldwide phenomenon that everyone seems to know about, I was just wondering for each of you, is there something in pop culture that you feel like you have a really deep knowledge for? What's the one thing maybe each of you would say in pop culture that you've had something almost bordering on obsession since you were maybe a kid or adolescent.

Curious to know. Love the podcast. Since a kid, I would say, you know, Batman. You know, I was like, I remember waiting to get the first ticket to the 1989 Batman movie. Yeah. Which by the way, looked like all the other tickets. Not the best use of my time.

Yeah. But then, you know, I would say that I, nobody bangs the drum harder for shows like Homicide Life on the Streets or Battlestar Galactica, the new Battlestar Galactica. Those are things that I feel like maybe I have a more abiding love for than the normal human being. Yeah.

Baseball cards, I feel like you. Yeah, that's, yeah. I mean, but then there are people that are so into baseball cards. That's the problem with a lot of these things. You get lapped like people are more into. Yeah. I don't know, I forget so much that I feel like I can't.

Yeah, you really do. It's interesting when I'm like, what is Josh's pop culture thing? I don't think you have one. I will say, but like you like, genre wise, I would say you love horror movies. I do. You love a good scare.

Yeah. But you're not, yeah. Yeah, but I don't. I don't know. I would say like I love Seinfeld, but then, you know, Sal Gentile, one of our writers, knows Seinfeld such a, you know, granularly in a way that I don't.

Right. Yeah, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of anything, I think. Yeah, again, you couldn't. You were of adult age in the 90s, you can't name all six friends. That's true. I tried, the other day, I was thinking about that again,

and I was like, yeah, I can't do it. And I didn't want to look it up. Real quick, I just want to say to Larry, I've driven through Cambria and it's beautiful. It's sort of this, you know, it's wine country. I sort of drove in off these sort of rolling California mountains down to the coast and was like, what is this town?

And that was Cambria. I did not stop, I was on my way to Big Sur, but man, it seems like a place that's worth stopping in. All right, put that on your next family trips, everybody. Cambria. Hi guys, my name's Kate from Philadelphia. I was just wondering how you guys think your family dynamic would have changed having a sister. And if you had to have a sister, would

you have preferred having an older sister, a sister in between you two, or a younger sister? I mean, now, being in a situation where I have two boys that are the same distance apart as you and I and watching them with a little sister, I would love to have had a little sister. Yeah, we talked about what it would have been like to have a little sister when we were kids. We talked about how we probably would have been

a real pain in the ass to any dude that wanted to date her. But yeah, I think that would have been really fun. Although also, you know, that older sister thing that we hear from so many of our guests and, you know, sort of having those early crushes based on friends of the older sister and trying to show off for her friends to be noticed, I feel like that is something that I would have been very into.

Yeah. I think reflected back on, sadly, but very into at the time. We had a very hilarious thing that's happening right now, which is Alexei has impeccable taste, impeccable style, and has friends with impeccable taste, impeccable style, and has friends with impeccable taste and impeccable style, has received all these gorgeous, hand-me-down dresses for Annie. And all Annie wants to do is wear pants and a t-shirt. And today, Alexi, I just heard her saying,

will you just please put on a pretty dress? And she's like, I wanna wear pants like my boys, like my boys, she calls her brothers the boys. And so it's so funny, like Alexi's like, I can't believe that because there's these two dumb boys, my daughter and like just the stupid, she looks so funny to me, but it is, and it's, I mean, it's my dream come true

that now Alexi has to deal with a stubborn woman. I'm like, oh no. But it's the best. Yeah. I have seen, I mean, there are some great pictures of Addie in adorable dresses. So they're out there. She'll put them on. They're out there. I also walked, I had to walk all three kids plus cousin Agnes to school today.

And Addie's in preschool. She's in a room called the Red Room. And Agnes started singing to her Addie's in the Red Room. And then Addie heard it and started singing along, but she had misheard it and started singing Addie to the rescue. She heard Red Room as rescue. And then the other boys go, so I was like, just I am pushing Addie in a stroller and then I got three kids

on scooters next to her and they're all screaming Addie to the rescue and it was really good times. Yeah, great. Yes, so I would have loved one. Sure. I mean, obviously we'd have to end up, it just, you know, the problem would have been would she have wanted to be cut in on the podcast? You know?

And would she have had, you know, yeah, she would have had good insights. She would have ripped us. Yeah, no, that's it. I'm the regular. I would like a sister, but she's not allowed to rip us. Can we have one of those, please? All right, let's hear our next one. Hi, Josh and Seth.

My name is Hannah. I'm from St. Louis. And my question for you guys is, I'm about to have a baby as a solo parent. How can I create family trips for just me and my baby and still manage to create the adventures and exciting stories that you guys hear about and tell yourself. How can I, as a solo parent, create that for my own child? Love the podcast, love you guys. Thank you.

First of all, congratulations. Second of all, you are gonna be fine because you are going to love the company that baby so much that it will just be so natural to you where to go and what to do. And you can't possibly know what that is yet, but I'm almost jealous of how special it's gonna be, in this chapter of your life where it's just the two of you

doing all these things together. My fiance, Mackenzie, her parents are divorced and divorced when she was pretty young. And she used to take trips with her mom, with just her mom. And they still talk about this place, Cooks Cabins, which is in Cape Cod. And I think there are these sort of like, you know, seaside, weather-beaten cottages,

and they would get one of those for a week after Labor Day, which was like a more affordable time of year. And there were these like sand dunes that you would hike down to the water, and they just sort of like hang. And it was this place that was like a little community because there were all these little houses. So you'd get to know the people that were there

for the same week or on the same weekends. And I think just like, yeah, going somewhere, going somewhere that's fun that like, I feel like Mackenzie's mom, Linda loved the beach and loved to lay out and kids like hanging on the beach. But find something that you love to do where your child will be able to sort of run around if you're in St. Louis.

I don't know how busy it is where you are, but a spot where kids can run around and play and where you can also be happy. And yeah, make those memories. That sounds exciting to me. You're gonna wanna be with that baby and that baby is gonna wanna be with you. And that's the most important part of any family trips.

So congratulations again. That's still a family. Hey, thanks everybody. We really do love these episodes and we couldn't do it without you and that was just wonderful today. Thanks everybody. Josh, do you want to say that thing about how to,

what the best way to move a wheel one more time, just in case people forgot? Yeah, you get, if you're 11, find a 12 year old, pick up one. It works at any age. Okay, yeah, but ideally though, that's the perfect age and you pick up one side of it and then you have the other person pick up the other side, and you carry it sort of like, I don't know,

like you're moving a table. Yeah, just like a janky back and forth. Shuffling, like real like little shuffling steps. Yeah, that's the best way. All right, thanks everybody. Joe and his family took a trip to the Jersey Shore got himself a hermit crab or two sisters in a beauty contest was just for crabs man that's the best but also there was a crab race and Joe was gonna win it Spuds hit the circular track Some dickhead crab tried to hold him back

Checkers came to his rescue Cause that's what broke crabs do Cindy haales from Alberta, she's got lots of siblings Road trip down to California When they hit LA's smoggy air They hit a bump and lost their spare. It hit the ground but didn't stop, just kept on rolling. There were two Canadians running down the median. They got the tire and brought it back, probably didn't carry it. Back to that first vacation Pageant, just for crustaceans

Was there a coronation? I'd like more information Huh! Allison hopped in the van and drove to Boston She saw the Freedom Trail and Plymouth Rock. The whale watch sounded pretty fun, but after hours in the sun, the boat just rocked and rocked and rocked, and they got nauseous. Special donuts with jelly

Not so good for a queasy belly The Cheerios that you once ate Have suddenly become fish bait Adding salt to injury The mini van smelled like the sea Eventually that smell would fade after seven years.