Slow Baja - Chris Collard Architect Of Adventure

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Chris Collard is an internationally published journalist and photographer whose career has deeply immersed him in the world of off-road adventure, overland travel, and sharing the lives of those who dwell beyond the pavement.Through his reporting and photography, he has traveled to all seven continents, and he was a member of the Expeditions 7 team, which is believed to be the first American expedition to cross Antarctica in four-wheel-drive vehicles. Collard was inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2015. In October of 2025, he covered my Slow Baja Vintage Expedition for two magazines. Most importantly, shortly after the trip ended, he and his wife returned to Baja to adopt “Cali,” a puppy he met at Baja Animal Outreach Rescue. Chris Collard is humble, thoughtful, deeply knowledgeable about all things off-road, and, most importantly, kind. I hope you find this conversation inspiring. Stay tuned for Part 2 next.Follow Chris Collard on Instagram here.Need Baja Bound Insurance? Get a quote here.Support Slow Baja with a donation here.Join a Slow Baja Adventure here.

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning in to the slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches and hands down my favorite tequila. Well, if you've been listening to me for a while, you know I'm an absolute minimalist when it comes to Baja travel. But the one thing I never leave home without is a good old paper map. and my favorite is the beautiful, and I mean beautiful, Baja Road and Recreation Atlas by benchmark maps.

It's an oversized 72-page book, jam-packed with details, and now you can get it from me at slowbaha.com. That's right. You can get it in the Slow Baja shop, and in fact, you better get two, one for your trip planning at home, and one for your Baja rig. And if you love maps and you can't get enough of them like me, let me. tell you about two sites I am absolutely obsessed with. Eastview MapLink and Longitude Maps.com, whatever you're looking for in Maps, it's there. From the entire benchmark collection to Baja Wall Maps, to Custom Maps, you'll find it all at LongitudeMaps.com or EVMapLink.com. You know I've long said it, ask your doctor if Baja's right for you. Well, if you've been hankering to get down to Slow Baja with me, you got to check out the Adventures tab at Slowbaha.com.

All my trips are there from my famed fall vintage extravaganza to my winter and summer expeditions, which are open to trucks of any age. You know, on a Slow Baja expedition, your meals are always included, which really does take the sting out of camping. And when we get off the trail, let me tell you, we have the happiest of happy hours. If good dirt roads, private campsites, Rant stays, great food, and great people sounds like you're kind of fun, well, you've got to check out the Adventures tab at slowbaha.com.

But don't delay. These trips are small, they're highly immersive, and they will sell out. And folks, just so you know, I am always here for you for your Baja trip planning questions. One question, 100 questions. The easy way to get me is Slowbaha.com slash contact. And if you'd like to go to Baja and you don't want to go by yourself, you don't have a vintage vehicle, my winter trip doesn't work out for you. I am happy to talk to you about organizing and leading a private guided tour. I've done it. I've loved it. The pictures are over there

at slowbaha.com slash adventures. And you can check them out. And if you've got some questions, let's talk. Thanks for tuning in to today's Slow Baja. My heaping dose of gratitude goes out to Toby Pond at Shieldman, USA. Yep, he is the guy. He's the connection that you need. to get the greatest seats in the world under your backside, in your rig, in your Baja truck. I've got them in both my land cruisers now, and I am super excited to say my old FJ 40. That's right. Slow Baja OG will be in the Shield Man booth at Overland Expo Pacific Northwest, June 26th, 27, 28th. So come by, say hello to Frank.

say hello to me check out the shield man seats that have been in there for like three or four or five years now absolutely amazing i'm going to drive 2,600 miles on those seats to uh get my truck into toby's booth and get it back to san diego and i can't wait so thanks toby my heaping dose of gratitude shield man u s a okay today's show is with chris collard chris collard just came back from my Slow Baja vintage expedition. He is an off-road motorsports hall of fame journalist. He's also on the board of directors there, and he is one cool cat. He doesn't really brag, but he could because he's traveled to all seven continents. He's an amazing, amazing wealth of information on adventure and travel in Baja. And without further ado, it's Chris Collard today on

Slow Baja. And just a quick note, this conversation went on so long that I broke it in two parts. So you're going to get two weeks in a row of Chris Collard, Adventure Architects on Slow Baja. There's so much going on here. We've got one, two, three, four cameras, redundant microphones, two guys who've been doing this a long time. And I say, I don't know anything. So we certainly hope it works. If it doesn't work, we're going to fire each other. Exactly. Well, I'm just delighted to be here in beautiful Colfax, California, at Adventure Architects headquarters with Chris Collard. Can't believe it. Yeah, we've been talking about this for like three years. Three years. I was just going to say, I've been chasing you around for three years.

Baja, Vegas, our last Baja trip, the Slow Baja Vintage Expedition. We were supposed to do it down then. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that I'm here. It's a beautiful day. It's at the end of April and the blue skies, puffy clouds, my dog's asleep, your dog's asleep. We're drinking coffee. And I can't wait to get into talking to you about why adventure matters. Now, you've got adventure architects. This is you've based your business on adventures. And I've done a little research on you.

You've traveled all seven continents. I have. Been very, very fortunate. And, yeah. Well, let's hop into a little bit about your travels. Before we get into that, I've had a burning question since I saw this picture of you, I don't know, you're five, six years old, and you're sitting on your dad's grieves and your dad's with you, right? Like, you're sitting in front of him, maybe kind of half humping up on the tank. And you, it's, what year would that have been?

1970 or something? I was probably about three years old, so that would have been like 66, 67, and that was a Greaves 250. So that tells me your dad did some cool stuff in the dirt, and that's where I'd love to start. So where did Chris Collard start, and what were the inputs from your folks? Did you hike? Did you do fun stuff in the dirt?

Obviously your dad had a grieves back in the 60s. That's like Steve McQueen on any Sunday stuff. Yes. Yes to all the above. All right. Dirt, playing in the dirt, hiking, you know, backpacking this year in Nevada. That greaves 250.

From that photo, I ended up, well, I didn't. My dad ended up later in the year, he and a couple of friends, they heard about this new race that was going from Barstow to Vegas. The B-to-V. B-to-B. And he was, like, race the first B-to-V on that bike. Wow. Didn't make it very far.

I think he made it like 50 miles, and he thought he was going, you know, just amazingly fast and passing everybody on these side routes. And then suddenly he realized the side route ended, and he went down a canyon. And it was the end of his race. Yeah. But, you know, I've just been super fortunate. My dad loved the outdoors. Still loves the outdoors. He's still with us.

And we did a lot of stuff riding out in the Mojave Desert, just you name it, anywhere in the Southern California area. We were out there. I was out there digging holes and sitting in my plane in the dirt. And then when I was five, I got my first mini bike. So I kind of grew up on those. Wow. California kid. Yeah, yeah.

And which is interesting because we lived less than a mile from the beach in Salana Beach. So it was either the beach or the desert. One of the most beautiful places in the world, especially I can't imagine it then before everything was built. In the 70s, yeah. Yeah. As everything was being built. It was still, you know, normal people could afford to live there. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But that was, you know, like I said, we did a lot of backpacking up in the Ceres around Mount Whitney area, you know, Lone Pine, Bishop, Chocolate Lake, Sloan Lake. And being, you know, loving to ride, my dad found Baja. So it's literally, you know, 30 miles to the south. You could cross the border and head down to Ensonata or San Felipe or San Quintin. And so those were our camping trips. with motorcycles and surfboards. So I guess Dad had a truck. So we're starting there.

We had a, he had a couple of trucks. So the motorcycle would have gone in the back of the truck? In a trailer, yeah. Oh, in a trailer, okay. Which was another truck bed that was cut up and made into a trailer. Sure, sure, yeah, of course. And did you have in those days, again, you're deep, we're going to get into this, you're deep in the overland, you know, world publishing and photographing articles.

Did you guys have anything comfortable then when you went into the dirt? What was your setup? What did you just sleep on in those days? We slept on a, you know, in an old military canvas tent. Of course. With my dad was Marine. Did you have cots? The bags that we had, no cots.

No. We slept, you know, we didn't have cots. What are cots? And we slept on the ground. You know, we had to, I laid the sleeping bikes out, and hopefully we were in like a sandy area or we'd break the rocks out of the way. But he had a couple of old green, I'm pretty sure they were from when he was in the Marines. But they would zip together. big, you know, green canvas sleeping bags, I'm canvas.

But, yeah, I mean, very, you know, old Coleman stove, old, you know, gas, you know, white gas, Coleman Lantern. And, you know, I mean, kind of at the time, they didn't, you know, they didn't have all the stuff that people have today. Sure, sure, sure, sure. So, but I'm already, we thought he had everything. I'm already smelling the inside of that tent and I'm smelling that, those sleeping bags. and there's a canvassy, slightly musty smell to that stuff under the best of circumstances. And then the white gas, you said, you know, and so you're pumping that up, and it's hissing and popping a little bit, and the light is flickering. Yeah, that's it.

Sometimes we're getting the camp stove going, you lose some eyelashes or whatnot. So you had a solid foundation of being in the dirt. We're getting into how you became Mr. Adventure. Well, I don't know if I'd be called Mr. Adventure. It's just something I gravitated towards. I mean, I think most people know. When I was in college, I worked at UPS at night in the warehouse and ended up taking a driving job and did that for 13 years. And I realized, like, I'm going to die emotionally if I stay. And I, you know, during that entire time, I was involved with the four-wheel drive scene and had started.

You had gone to high school here in the Sacramento area, right? Yeah. So you got into the four by four off road scene, Rubicon, all that stuff. Right. It's kind of where we learned to drive. Right. And as far as like technical terrain, which I didn't realize at the time was known around the world as like the place to go and it was our backyard.

Yeah. Had you stayed in Salonah Beach or maybe spent more time in El Cajon, you could. have been a dirt bike racer of renowned, you know, no teeth, but you might have, you might have been the fastest kid in alcohol. I'm sure that if we stayed down there, that it would have, you know, the off-road would have, stuff would have transitioned more into, you know, yeah, desert racing and that type of thing, more Baja stuff. But we moved up here, like, right before high school. Right. Right. But I also learned that there were all kinds of things in the mountains and the desert and snow skiing.

And of course, when, you know, when I got my first four-wheel drive, which you saw earlier, I still have it, old ADTOTA, the natural thing was, well, where do people go? We started going off and, you know, finding the trails around here. So Rubicon was just one of them. There's a lot of trails. Yeah. A lot of trails. Snow, mud, dirt, all that, depending on what time of year you're going and great fishing and other things here. That's why people live here, right?

Yeah, a lot to do. There's a lot to do. So to answer your question in kind of a roundabout way, I don't know. It's just, you know, some people love to do other things, play video games or play golf or, you know, play tennis or do whatever. And I just, I did some of that stuff, you know, in high school. It was kind of obligatory to play sports. But I was like, man, as soon as I got wheels in the car, it's like, I'm going to go find other stuff to do. Explore. Explore. In the days of our youth, What year did you graduate from high school? 81. So a couple years ahead of me. You know, you'd see stuff in a magazine, and you'd want to go check that stuff out. That's right. So in high school, I was into hot rods. Uh-huh.

So it was everybody in those days. Isn't that right? Yeah. My first car was a 71 Vega with a 350, four-bolt main in it, and then after I wrecked that, as the story goes. You know, but I was also fortunate in that, you know, I'd been exposed to Baja in the desert and doing stuff with my dad. And we moved up here when we found Nevada. And Nevada is just a wide open place to ride dirt bikes. Right.

Very Baja like in those days. Yeah. And to an extent, it still is. Yeah. It's, you know, I can drive from where we're sitting. I can drive over to Grass Valley and get to Colorado in almost all dirt roads. Amazing. And so, you know, you touched on the overland thing.

And, you know, nobody ever called it overlanding. It was just camping. Go and camping. Yeah, going camping. But that term has been around, of course, for, hundreds and hundreds of years. Everybody seems to think it was just originated recently, and it's not, you know, Marco Polo, days of Marco Polo, he went overland to Mongolia, to China. He either went overland or you went overseas. Yeah, by horse, by camel, by foot.

Yeah. So it, you know, it kind of just, you know, for me, it was just like a natural transition into vehicles and a four-wheel drive, and we got a train coming. It's all right. We got a dog. We got a train. The microphones are good. We're going to work right through this. Right.

So, you know, I was fortunate that I was exposed to a lot of stuff when I was younger. And I don't know. This was my nature. I wanted to go see more stuff. And as soon as, I mean, I had a, you know, I know you're the slow Baja guy, and I've done a lot of traveling down there. But, you know, there was a period between when I was younger and when I became an adult that I didn't go to Baja. And finally, it was like, I guess I was about 26 or so.

And, you know, had some friends. They were like, we, you know, we all decided, let's go back down. Let's go to Baja. They had never been there. And then it just kind of re, you know, reinstilled my interest in the peninsula. There's so much there. Then I, like, I've probably, I've been. back at least every year, at least once, sometimes two or three times. Always trying to find

new routes that I haven't done. Yeah. And so, you know, when I first connected with you after the Nora, probably 2022, I think, I think you were driving in my tracks on some dirt road, wondering who this was because they're fresh tracks. And when you finally caught up to me, you said, you know, you ran over a baby rattlesnake, which I was not aware of. But you were, you were following my tracks and wondering who was making them. Yeah, that was the road from, I was in one of my favorite little stealth camps on the road that goes to Bay of L.A. from Max 1, and then cuts across to, um, back to the highway where the track from Calamaha Canyon comes out. Right. That long, yeah, it goes up through the mining district. And yeah, I saw some set of tracks in front of me. I'm like, man, those are fresh. Got it and sniffed them.

They were almost warm. And so when I hit the pavement there, I think it was at, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, At Rancho Grande Market, I saw Tim and Kelsey's truck. So I swung in because I saw their truck, and then you swung in because you saw their truck and my truck and said, that's the guy making the tracks. And you had a real flex, if I recall. You know, I was doing my best. I had the bottle of Fortaleza,

but you brought out the Baja Almanac and laid that out. And we started talking about things. And I said, I really like this Chris Collard guy. I'd heard all about you, but once I saw you in person, you were not afraid to take a sip of fine tequila, at that three o'clock somewhere spot. And I know you're used to drinking stuff that's not quite as good as Fortaleza,

but you'll step up when you have to if somebody else is pouring. But we got the almanac out, and I had the almanac in my, but still in my toolbox in the back, they're all wrapped up in the military final case. And I think we solved every Baja problem of the day.

Most of them. Yeah, most of them. Tim and Kelsey are great too. I had a world hunger and, you know, homeless issue in there. Something like that. The biggest thing was, you know, Well, where was that next shot of Fortaleza tequila coming from?

Yeah, it's hard stuff to find now. Those days it wasn't that hard. I was carrying, I think, four cases on that trip. But, yeah, it's getting quite hard to find these days. So you got down to Baja, and you've been going to Baja, as you said, every year since. But, again, I'm not going to unnecessarily inflate your eagles. but coast to coast in Australia, Antarctica, again, seven continents, so you've been everywhere, man, as they say.

I know I talked to you, you were down and you answered my call and you're in Uruguay. Yeah, that was a couple months ago. Yeah, and you keep a forerunner down there. Yeah, I own a forerunner with a friend of mine in South America. And this vehicle right behind us, now you weren't on the 1978, 79 trip, but you were on the 20th anniversary. You took some vehicles down there with Mark Smith,

who Mark Smith, if I recall our earlier conversation, you were his UPS driver or something. I was Mark's UPS driver. Tell me a little bit about that. So here's, again, getting back to those legends that we saw in the magazines. You know, again, you're a few years older than I am. So I don't know if you're sitting at the 7-Eleven or your magazine stand, but to see like the turtle expeditions, man, like that was, wow, wow. People are doing that, wow. And to drive, you know, the length of the Pan American Highway.

and go through the Darien. That was, wow. And so you're delivering to this legend. And you know he's a legend. Most people don't know who he is or what he did unless they're jeepers. So, Michael, when I, like I said, in the 80s, you know, when we'd go up on the Rubicon, of course, everybody knew about jamboree. We knew about this expedition, de las Americas.

We knew about Mark. And we'd be up there and we'd hear rumors like, hey, we heard Mark Smith is going to be, might be up here somewhere. And we're like, oh, wow. hey like how man i hope i get to meet him and then 10 years later i'm this uPS driver and um you know he found out that i was into the four-wheel drive scene and asked if i wanted to work on events with him so around the country um so flying into north carolina or texas or idaho and being like working with him and merlin as like um the staff one of the staff guys and i'm like wow this is you know it was pretty

cool. I've been, you know, fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. And so many, so many times, just, you know, by putting yourself out there, you know, racing with Rod Hall. We're going to get into that. We're going to get into that in a big way. It's, you know, so I look back and I'm like, why did all these people like even want to talk to me, you know, but they did and, you know, and it turned into some amazing stuff. So Mark wasn't on the 1998 trip. That was actually put together by Al Grimm, who used to own this vehicle. And that was six weeks in South America. So, yeah.

20th anniversary of. It's a 20th anniversary of Exhibit. And we're coming up on the 50th anniversary in 2028, so like two years. So interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy that it's been 50 years. So I, you know, again, I've felt like super lucky.

and then, you know, I left UPS, but Mark was going to continue to call. I'm sorry? Mark was a little bit integral in having you evaluate what you were doing with your time. He did. Yeah, he was. And you had a desire to step up and be a photographer. I dreamed about it. But, you know, that's not an easy job.

You know, nobody's had the sign out freelance photographers wanted come work for us. Nobody. You got to go hustle it. Nobody. Yeah. But, and you might. I might have heard that story before, but I mean, Mark really... I think we talked about it. Yeah, he...

We were on a flight and he was kind of drilling me on like, what do you know, what do you want to do with your life? You're going to be a UPS guy or, you know, what's up? And, you know, I shared with him my dreams and he's like, you know, and he had a way about him. He had kind of, he wasn't from the south. He was actually from Kimberly Nevada, which is near Ely, but he had kind of a southern drawl to the way he talked. And he basically was like, well, what the... F are you going to do? Get off your ass.

And do something. Because nobody's going to do it for you. Isn't that the truth? Nobody's going to do it for you. I really had, I always appreciated Mark being that candid with me. And honest, it's like, well, kid, you know, get off your ass and do something.

And another friend of mine, Jody, who we've been friends since we were both like 1819. And he would see me in a UPS truck and we talk and be like, hey buddy how's it going and I'm like oh it's going it's all right he's like how's that big brown piece of crap truck you're in it's like 130 degrees in there right and he was just telling me it's like dude you're wasting your life and so I've always been appreciative of the people that really pushed me to you know to do something to jump off the bridge with literally no parachute yeah we're going to take a quick break right here and we'll be right back with Chris Collard Here it's Little Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border.

And when we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at BajaBound.com. That's Bajaubound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Hey, big thanks to those of you who've contributed to our Baja Baseball Project. You know, we launched our gear deliveries on my winter expedition. Michael and Matthew from Barbers for Baja. We're along for the ride,

and we got to deliver that critically needed baseball gear up and down the peninsula. It was really, truly amazing. All right, well, please help us continue this vital work. Make your tax deductible donation at the Barbers for Baja. Click, barbers for Baja.org, click the Baseball and Baja link, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really do. It is so amazingly gratifying to be able to, uh,

be able to give these kids this chance to keep playing this sport, keep them on the field, keep them out of trouble. Please check it out. Baseball in Baja link at barbers for Baja.org. Thank you. I want to tell you about these new Rocky Talky radios that I absolutely love. Heavy duty, beautifully made, easy to program, easy to use. We had 28 people, 15 trucks on the Slow Baja Winter Expedition.

You can hand these radios to anybody from a 14,000. year old kid to an 80-year-old, and they'll know how to use it. They are that well-designed. One charge lasted the entire week. We are never out of range. I happen to upgrade to the accessory whip antenna for my radio and for my sweeps radio, the Donovan Brothers. We were never out of contact. I can't say it strongly enough. Rocky tokey radios, Rockytocky.com. Check them out. Slow Baja approved. The proverbial jumping off of the bridge, you've got Mark Smith, this legendary jeeper pushing you a little bit. You know, you should chase your dream. And how did that first shoot go?

How did that, you know, how, I mean, how did it play out for you to shoot a story and see it through to publication? Well, the first, I did some digital stuff for a friend of mine that had a website called, four by four wire. But the first print magazine piece that I did was actually on the 1998 20th anniversary expedition. And it was like super exciting, you know. It's like, hey, see my stuff in print. I'm on the byline. And, you know, from a financial standpoint, you know, being a freelance writer, well, I'm going to back up. Financials don't matter. I mean, there's no sense of embarrassing you or I about how little we made. in those days.

Yeah. No, but I bought a book at Barnes & Noble's bookstores. He used to go and you'd actually buy books, and you buy magazines off the news rack. Exactly. Did it yesterday. From a guy named John Shaw, he's a very accomplished National Geographic photographer, and he had a book called The Business of Nature Photography.

I bought it, and I'm reading through it. Now, mind you that I've been an editor of magazine, I've written for publications all around the world, blah, blah, blah. English is my least best subject growing up in school. I'm like, it was horrible. Yeah, colon, semi-colons. Yeah. Yeah.

Where do you put what? Two, two, and two? It's like what? Or there, there and there. So basically his message, one of the messages I got from reading his book was that if you are an amazing photographer and you want to sell that one of your images, the best way to do it is with a great story. And basically keying into the transition, this is a totally. 25 years ago or better than that, that the way for the future is that you need to have a turnkey package for whoever you're working for. Or if you're going to pitch something.

So you need to be able to write the story. You need to be able to put this people in the seat, you know, in the parachute on the windsurfer, whatever you're writing about. And accompanying it with some great images because that's what you've got to do. So that was a good lesson. And I went back to school. I went back and took English classes, you know, punctuation, grammar, sentence structure. Did I learn anything?

I don't know, but, you know, I realized. But you were taking it seriously is what you're saying. Yeah, I had. You were taking it seriously. That's right. Yeah. Didn't have grammarly or whatever people use now. They did not, we did not have that.

And you were, I actually bought my, when I bought my first computer when I was writing the story on that 1998 South America thing, I'm like, I guess I better spend $1,200 bucks on this new computer. So it was like a big thing. Yeah. You know, laptops are 2,500.

There was a lot of money back then. Yeah, there's a lot of money. Hey, well, let's get into those travels. So, again, we're going to get to Baja, which is so important to both of us. And that's the reason I'm interested in being here today. But adventures. So you got off in 98 and did this trip to South America. I'm just going to humble brag about you for a second.

So you're a few years older than me, three-ish years, based on when you graduated from high school and when I graduated. I don't know if you were... I was going to say, I don't know if you got held back a few times. I didn't want to say that, you know, talking to Johnny Johnson. I said, weren't you and Lynn classmates?

Yeah, but I got held back one year. So, you know, I had my first photo published when I was, 1981, when I was a high school kid, cover of a weekly newspaper, you know, and made $25 bucks, and I thought I was hot, hot stuff. And you started after a career in... in driving UPS. 1998, you're getting into your first published work, correct? I was 37 when I quit UPS.

Yeah, so, and then I'm just saying it's like, it's like Star Wars when you go into hyperspace. You somehow parlayed all this into getting into the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in almost no time. Well, you did some amazing stuff between 98 and, you know, getting recognized and inducted into the Hall of Fame.

And let's get into a little bit, I don't want to put you on the spot because you're a pretty humble guy, but all over the world. Let's talk a few. Just walk me through some of those. So one of the things I realized is like, you know, I'm nobody. Nobody knows me. I'm not like well published, et cetera, but I realize, I mean, I've always, you know, I date everybody at dreams of travel and I had to figure out how to do it and how to do it. And somebody else's nickel.

Well, hopefully you're trying. Yeah. Yeah. So there was an event called the ARB Outback Challenge, Broken Hill, Australia. And it was sponsored by three companies. And I reached out to the companies. I said, hey, I'm Chris. I've had stuff published.

But would you like to help cover my airfare to get there? Three ways. It's 500 bucks a piece. Two of them blew me off. It's funny because I ended up working a lot with those companies. I said actually an ambassador for one of them for a while later. But Jim Jackson at ARB said, yeah, sure. I'll cover, you know, three ways.

And so I was able to fly there. They covered me, you know, the event covered me once I was boots on the ground. But before that, I had just maybe a year and a half before that, I had stepped in front of a photographer at Seymus, who was photographing Gary and Monica Westcott's Turtle X tradition. vehicle, which, by the way, live like 20 miles from here. I've got to get an introduction and go meet them.

They spend so much time in Baja. They are coming back from South America in the next couple. I saw them on the road in Baja. We passed each other. They were stoic looking out that front window. They weren't waving at some guy in an FJ 40. I was waving at them, but they weren't waving to me. They were focused.

So other people that are like, yeah, sidetracked, but they were legends. I mean, we all would great four-weiler magazine. For sure. See we're turtle eggs by dish. Exactly. End up being very good friends with them. And like I said, they live close.

So back to the Outback Challenge, I had bumped into this in front of this guy's photograph and he reaches. I said, oh, excuse me. And he says, oh, he's okay, he's okay. The Russian guy. Russian guy. And I said, I said, my name is Chris. Where are you from? He goes, reaches out of his hand, shake my hand.

And he says, Andre, editor of photo by photo magazine, Moscow. And Michael, it flipped on a light in my head because I'd been selling articles to one outlet making one sale. And I'm like, we need to talk. So I spent several years tracking down every publication I could find in a different part of the world. South Africa, Japan, Australia, you know, he name it, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Spain, Netherlands, Finland, They all have different publications in different languages, so I'm not going to tee anybody on. Yeah, you're not impacting the rights of first rights in North America. Different market.

Different, yeah, exactly. So I did that first event. That's back when people used to retain the rights to their works, kids. You can look that up in Wikipedia. Michael, I have the rights to everything I've ever done. I don't doubt that. Every photograph I've ever taken. All the OEM stuff, I still own the rights to all that stuff.

That's my, that's how it work. Yeah, sorry for that aside of how copy your stuff. where I used to work. So I did this thing in Australia, and I sent it out to like eight or nine different international publications. And, of course, the event was, thought that was awesome. For sure. They're getting huge exposure.

The people that put on the event, not only that, and the three companies that sponsored the event. And then when I wanted to go to the next event, I reached out to the promoter. And I said, hey, I'm Chris. I'm a Yahoo. journalists in the United States interest in your event. And by the way, this is the stuff I did. Here's the 25 clips. For the last one. Right. And it just like went from there. Smarter than the average bear. I don't know. I was just winging it. Yeah. But, you know, and none of them,

it's like, you know, you're talking about money. None of them paid a ton. No, no, no. So it's, we're getting back to the adventure thing. So you cultivated publications all over the world. But tell me about some of the stories that you are selling to these magazines, some of the adventures that took you all over the world. Right. So what I realized is once I'm boots on the ground in a country, Australia, wherever, Morocco, once I'm there, and I cover an event, it's like, you know, do they have fishing here? Because there's fishing magazines in the United States that would be exotic to go fishing in Morocco or to go fishing in Australia. Sure. And so I would, but that wasn't my focus, but I would stay. in country for another couple weeks or whatever that time was and I would source a vehicle

whether I could borrow it from somebody whether I hired it whatever that was and then I would do an adventure story like I did the Outback Challenge a different different year and drove from I flew over to cans and drove from cans to Darwin all across the top end all the developmental roads and everything and that's a whole other story that you can sell so once you're there it's like do as much you can. Yeah, well, when I saw you, uh, the earlier trip that we referenced in Baja, you were taking something like two weeks to get back from, from Cabo, from after photographing the Nora. Right. And most people need to be back at work on Monday, so they're beelining it, you know, a thousand miles to get back up there. But I was delighted to see you

and Susie and you were just like, I was back at work the next day. Yeah, well, remote. Driving, taking pictures. Right. Exactly. Camping. Doing, it's a job. Sharing the experience. I mean, that's a job, ma'am. That's my job. Yeah. So, you know, that's kind of what I realized. Like, once I'm on, I'm rocking outback challenge. They brought me in for the event. And I scheduled a couple weeks after the event. I was supposed to borrow a vehicle from them. Didn't work out. It actually got rolled over. I happened to be in it when that happened. It wasn't your fault. No, no, no.

You were a passenger and the driver was, you lost control of the vehicle. Oh, it was a previous race car. They had seatbelts on the front, but they didn't have seat belts in the back. Yeah. And I was on the back. So we were all very lucky. Did it, middle of the night, I didn't speak French, but the driver said something in French. And later I found out he said, no steering.

So. That's critical. That's right up there with no brakes. Yeah. Two things that will kill you. No brakes. You're steering and your brakes, you know. Well, you're quite reluctantly, you've got the brakes on and telling me more places that you've been, but I know you've been a few places.

Antarctica is a place that nobody's basically been. Maybe my friend Kurt Williams has been there, probably on the same trip that you went. No, Kurt wasn't on that trip. No, he did that was part of Expedition 7. Right. I know he was, I know Kurt was on Expedition 7, but not on the Antarctic League. I think he did like, I might have done that. I think he did the Russian.

Yeah, Russian. And the Australian, of course, you did the Australian part. Yeah. You know, and at that time, I was the editor of the magazine, Overland Journal, which was, you know, a huge undertaking. I mean, we had 130 pages that we had to fill, and I was kind of a, you know, one-man show for the most part. And so I realized, like, you know,

because I did have the opportunity to do the leg across Russia and South American stuff, but I just didn't have time to do it and be able to continue to put the magazine together. it should be. Right. But the one that was on my list, and I had talked to Scott, Scott Brady, it's like the one that I really, really wanted to do is Antarctica. And I was able to do that.

And it was, yeah, super fortunate. It's like, you know, we went out of Cape Town. I'm just going to say back up for a second. So, yeah, Expedition 7, Greg Miller, wants to take one. Greg Miller, Larry Miller's son, family fortune of car dealerships. and wants to take one land cruiser around the world, all seven continents, correct? Pick it up from there. So you're at the magazine.

Yeah, so that all started at a barbecue in Paul May's backyard, so he owns Equipped at Salt Lake City. And, of course, Greg Miller's in Salt Lake City. Yeah, I mean, the Overlane crowd was there. And so the conversation got started between Scott and Greg, and it kind of went from... Could you do it? Is it possible? Well, it didn't start as going around the world. It was starting to going across the Americas or something like that and then kind of morphed into, you know, all seven continents.

And so, yeah, it was amazing. I mean, Greg had the means to put that together financially, you know, and I will always eternally be grateful that I was able to be part of that project. especially Antarctica, you know, because it was pretty darn awesome. I mean, it's not for everybody. I mean, camping in 40 below. My wife's from North Dakota. You know, there's cold all over the world. Funny because, yeah, we didn't have, there wasn't any Starlink.

First time I went there was 80 below. So, you know, I know it wasn't quite as cold up there. It was like 40 below. Yeah. And I found out that that's actually where Centigrate and Fahrenheit charts kind of come together, right around 40 below. But somewhere we posted a satellite, Facebook something, or other social media, something. And somebody came back from North Dakota and said, that's not cold. Yeah.

As my father-in-law used to say, you know, there's an entire country north of us and they're not complaining about the weather. That's right. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cold enough. It's cold enough for me. That's for sure. He was my medical editor.

I'm a great guy. And I'm like, yeah, dude, but you're not camping in a tent. Exactly. You're not sleeping in a tent. Exactly. Yeah. So that must have been something, honestly. And again, you know, I mean, I camp in Baja, and that's the full extent of my camping.

I'm not a big camper. Camping in Antarctica in a tent, break that down for me. So there's an old saying that there is no bad weather. If you just, there's bad clothing. If you're prepared, you're prepared. So having the right equipment is a pretty big deal. And we did have the right equipment. You were mentioning, you know, some of the aluminum storage box.

is that we used Nemo tents. We had an Arctic oven double tents. So we actually had individual tents that we thought we were going to use. We did that the first rest period. So when I say rest period, it's because we would drive for 20 hours. It's daylight all the time. It's daylight, 24-7. Okay.

And then we would rest for 10. And when you rested, you made water, which is melting ice. You ate, set up a potty, went to the bathroom, and then you slept. So the first rest period that is, you know, we finally got up on the plateau, which ranges from 8,000 to 11,000 feet, which is quite a bit colder than sea level where we landed in Novo, which was an ice runway that was not exactly straight and not exactly level. And the girl from Antarctic logistics we were working with, she was French, I think, and

she goes, oh, it's okay. It's not straight and it's not level, but it's kind of like a worm. but the pilots, they drink some vodka before they land in, so they're very relaxed. It will be fine. It'll be fine, right? It was fine. It was fine. What are you worried about?

The single tents. You flew, right? You were a pilot when you're much younger. Yeah. Did that kind of stuff scare you? Did you get a look in the cockpit? Because you would have been strapped in the back with all the cargo. Well, probably not in view of cockpit stuff.

I was able to go up there, you know, but not into the cockpit. Right. I could take a look in. I actually wanted to get down into the ball. The navigators, like, bulb down below for the landing, but she was like, no, you can't do that. So we're pretty much blind. They have a live movie screen going from a camera in the front of the plane, but you don't see a lot. You cannot verify if there were some vodka being taken.

It's just part of the culture. As long as they were relaxed. Sweeping generalizations here. Yeah. What are you going to do? All right. So you landed on this runway. did the prep, got on.

So our first, going back to our first, it was below a place called Thor's Hammer. So you finally get up on the plateau. And it's in the glacier fields is where all the ice is flowing off of the top of the plateau. And that's the dangerous spot. Once you get up on the plateau, there's not a lot of crevasses, but where the ice is flowing down like a river there are. And so the guys at Arctic trucks and geese, Lee from Arctic trucks was with us. He was kind of like the expert guide guy. And they had gone and they had actually done a ground penetrating sonar route all the way up to the top.

Kravos for you, hopefully. That's what you were tracking. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But there were times it's like when you get out, everybody's set out of the vehicle if you get out. But there were times where, you know, and this is before I had drones. There were times where it's like, I got to get up there. And then I just untethered myself. and grabbed my ice stick and hiked up there. Was it smart? Probably not. It's not like Baja where you're just going to climb up that little rise to see if there's a nice little place to camp. But it was what I needed to do to get the shot that I thought I needed to get. Yeah. Or the video, because I was also doing all the video for the trip. But just such a surreal place.

Once you get up there, it is, you would think it's featureless, but it's not. There's a Strachugi, and I always pronounce that wrong. pronounce that wrong is basically it's ice sculptures that are made when the catabotic winds just like blow across and they can be from a few inches tall to eight feet tall. And so you're just kind of threading your way, you know, basically which direction? South. It's always south until you get to where it's zero zero zero, you know, until you're at 90 degrees south and 90 degrees east and 90 degrees west. And that's that to Amundsen, Scott, South Pole Station, which if you haven't been there, it is massive.

It will house like 230 people. It's got a basketball and gymnasium. Do you like to just drop that? So when I was down at the Admondson, you know, down the South Pole. Do you ever just drop that when you're chatting, you know, Overlanders up? Not really. No, it's kind of a big flex. But, yeah.

Anyway, fascinating places. And so people ask, it was like, you know, I always wanted to go to Antarctica, and I tell them, it's like, you can go. Just about anybody can go and get paid to go because there are jobs in Antarctica. Once we got to the South Pole, our goal was to get all the way across the continent to the Ross Ice Shelf, which we did. But while we were heading down there, we ran into the fuel train. And the fuel train is basically it's not a regular conventional train with wheels. It's tracked vehicles.

They've got sledges. They've got these 4,000-liter bladders of diesel fuel. and they run twice a year from McMurdo up to South Pole Station. And this is so the generators wherever at Admondson and all runs off a diesel. They all run off of diesel. They all run off a diesel. Wow. I never thought about how did the diesel get there.

That's right. They drag it in on big sledges. It's astonishing. But we ran into the fuel train. And I met a guy that was from Chico just up the road. And he was a, you know, I talked to him. He's like, he goes, yeah, a diesel mechanic. And I always wanted to go to Antarctica.

So I just started looking at jobs. and they had a job for a diesel mechanic, so here I am. Sure. So there are ways to do it. All right, well, enough about Antarctica. We're going to work our way around the globe to Baja and back to Rod Hall. But tell me about some of the other trips and other places that you've been. Okay.

You mentioned Morocco Outback Challenge, Australia. I've been to Morocco a number of times. Africa, obviously. Tell me a little bit about Africa. Because, again, people are so afraid in the world that I live. live in. People, since I'm all Baja all the time, people are afraid to go to Baja. You know, I've been to Africa. I went to Africa when I was 15 years old. I thought it was astonishing. It made me want to be a photographer. It's incredible. It's incredible. And it's different. It's so different

from the animals to the slums, to the, you know, the wide open places with nobody to the places that have so many people. It's brutal. You're not used to that. We're not used to that level of everything on top of everything and on top of everything. So if you're referencing Africa as a single continent, that's correct. But as a single area, absolutely not. It's like saying North America. Sure. It could range from Alaska to Panama.

Yeah. So Africa is the same way. You know, West Africa, you know, Morocco, Angola. You get down to the south. And there's a lot of places that are fairly hot as politically. And, you know, going through those areas can be a little more sketchy. And areas that I haven't gone to, like the whole the Horn of Africa, I've not been through those areas, which I'd like to. One day I'll probably put a trip together going that way.

But like the nine or ten Southern African countries are amazing, you know, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya, Kenya. Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland. Who did I mess? Anyway, it's like you can, the normal people can travel. I mean, my roommate. You can fly and drive. You can fly and drive. Rent a car.

I've actually written articles on skills articles on like, how do you do that? How do you fly into New Zealand and source a vehicle or Australia or South Africa or Botswana or Malaysia? and you can do it. Vietnam. You can do it. Get that scooter, get that, get that moped. And in Vietnam, you're not allowed to drive, but you can ride. So it's, you know, motorcycles, yeah.

I still don't think foreigners can drive vehicles in Vietnam, if I remember. All of that travel, all the way around the world, all those continents. What I would really want to talk to you about is what have you learned from that level of adventure? Now, again, I'm thinking about. our current state of affairs. You know, people are screaming on each other in our country. We're highly polarized. I think, I personally think,

the more you travel, the more you're able to tolerate your neighbor. Very, very good point. What have I learned? I don't want to put words in your mouth. No, no, no, no. You've been everywhere, man. So enlighten me.

What, I guess my take on it, Michael, is that I wish more Americans did travel and they would see the rest of the world. And not, I'm not talking about the canned experiences where somebody guides you around with a little umbrella and say, here, this is DeBrovnik. Come walk through with us and we'll safely get you back on this cruise ship. I'm not cutting on cruise ship things.

People like those, I hear. I'm sorry. People like cruise ships. I know. I think it's great. And you can also learn a lot doing that. But when you spend time with your boots on the ground, having lunch,

in some little cafe and some little alleyway in the middle of Malaysia. Like I was, yeah, I was in Malaysia and I was like, I was with a guy, a local guy, he was my tucktuck driver, Mr. Redd. And actually, I'm sorry, Cambodia. And he says, oh, I can take you to some lunch. And he took me some by some place and it's where all the expats eat. And I'm like, I don't want to eat here. I'm like, I want to eat where you eat.

Where would you go to eat? And he looks at me a little funny. He's like, are you sure? You sure? I'm like, yeah, yeah, let's go eat where you want to eat. Where would you normally go to lunch? And so we did. And it was a very local place.

And, you know, they didn't have steaks on the menu. You had deep fried fish, it was semi-bredded, and there wasn't a lot of fish on it. It was more like picking whatever was left on the bones off and some vegetables and some rice. But hopping back to the Expedition 7 for a second, talking to Kurt Williams, he said the best, nights he had on that trip were when they didn't plan their meal in camp and they had to go local. And he said that absolutely the best interactions they had on the entire trip and his best memories were local dining with local people. Absolutely. You got to mingle with the locals.

I mean, and some of the you know, you might talk about memorable meals. for me they're not a five-star. None of them. It's not the gourmet experience. It's the experience of the experience. It is the experience of eating in a special place and it's just special people. It's just not a filet mignon and scampy or whatever else people order at five-star restaurants. You know, in Zambia, I was on my own that trip, two of the trips I went to, in Africa I did with my college or

mate Alan Andrews, who was working on his doctorate in Port Elizabeth. So on the second one, I left him in Zimbabwe, and he flew out of Livingston. I had five weeks on my own. And I'm doing this trek through the bush on just a road I found on tracks for Africa. Very remote. Like no gringoes or Mizunga's white guys, rich white guys drove down. I'm driving this red Hummer with stickers all over it. middle of the night, I was just trying to stay off what they called the Bled Highway because it's...

Blood for a reason. Yes. People are going to run you over. You're going to get carjacked. Yeah, it was, yeah. Drunk drivers and carjackings. Yeah, it was the route coming out of, basically, I was trying to get South Lwanga Park, National Park, and it was just three sides of a triangle. They said, do not drive that road at night, you know, told me all this stuff you're going to see well, I saw it all.

And I finally I stopped and I found a route that went through the bush. Ended up very remote. I mean, I'm driving through the very narrow two track. Guy on a bicycle shows up with a goat hanging off the back and rise by. He's like puts up one hand, you know, and then I see somebody else ride by. Anyway, finally, like one o'clock, I'm like, I need to find a place of sleep. Found an opening, set up the tent. And I thought I was alone until I saw this huge flash of flames from right across the track.

and I was parked next to a village, a small village. So there's rendezvals, which are made of sticks with elephant dung packed all over the outside of them. So I had like instant friends the next morning. And did they just want you to know that they're there? They just wanted, they were giving me a signal. Wow. They were giving me a signal. So here's the thing that people are so afraid of.

And they went up and I had. You think immediately those people are going to rob you. Oh, no. They were. And they probably made you breakfast. They invited me for probably like their last. bowl of mealy meal and they had nothing absolutely nothing but it was yours guest if you're a guest yeah i mean that's what the incredible thing is that um i just wrote i write a column for ovar magazine

and i just wrote a column called well it's called notes from the trail anyway and i just wrote something about that about cultural experiences where you know no matter how we how fast we think we have to move as americans like i got a schedule it's like okay i'm going to be here this day. It's like I'm in the middle of Morocco and somebody invites me for some tea in their house. You're going to say yes. You better say yes. And they're going to ask you about your family and your wife and your parents and their health. And, you know, talk about Allah and God. And you're going to, you know, you're going to reciprocate because, and they're not asking you that because it's because they don't care because it's cultural. It's like you're a guest in their home. And

they're going to find out as much as they can. It's that it's almost, it almost seems like it's scripted because you'll find it in the next place you go, but it's not scripted. It's like it's cultural. And I wish more Americans could realize that when you travel, you look back at America and you're like, it is absolutely incredible. I mean, I'm always, you know, when I kiss it around when I come back. But it is so incredible what we have, you know, the opportunities that we have,

economics that we have. And we've got more stuff sitting in this, my shop here and the cars around, I would be embarrassed if most of these people knew that I have all this stuff. The embarrassment of your riches. And you don't feel rich ever, do you? Unless you're in an African village. But that's all relative. Yeah. Yeah. It's relative to the family that's living in the, you know, Elephant Dung Rondeval in the middle of Zambia. Right. Who's sharing their meal with you. Yeah. Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Chris Collard. And we're going to have part two of that conversation coming right up probably inside of a week yeah that's right chris is such a good dude and uh i cannot believe that he came all the way home 600 miles north of the border after the slow baha vintage

expedition and then turned right around went back down got that dog callie and callie is just thriving so great to see her running around chris's place got lots of room very very excited was very excited to see my dog frank yeah it just warms my heart that was the third sister, the third beautiful puppy to get adopted from the Slow Baja Vintage Expedition. Well, if you like what I'm doing, folks, it is time. I'm talking to you. That's right, I'm talking to you, Slow Baja listener, and there are lots and lots and lots of you, but I'm going to need you to drop a taco in the tank.

You do that by going to slowbaha.com slash donations. You pick out the number of tacos, one, two, five, a whole tray. I'll take them all. How many tacos do you have? I need them. So drop a few in the tank. Keep me going. Keep me going to these folks places. Chris's, Chris had a, I don't know, seven, eight hour round trip driving out to Chris's place and my old FJ40 that gets 10 miles to the gallon. You know what gas costs in California now? Holy Toledo, $6.50 a gallon, man alive. Anyhow, if you like what I'm doing, you got to drop a taco in the tank and I mean it. And if you don't have any tacos, well, I get it.

Times are tough, and not everybody has tacos that they can share with slow bah-ha. So I'm also talking to you, taco-less folk. Drop a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. Tell people while you're listening to this show, I really do need you to do that, especially the folks without the tacos. Do that kindness for me. Do that solid. get folks, share your passion for this show and get folks listening. I really need the help in that regard as well. Okay, enough of my grovelin. There's some cool stuff in the store still,

hats and teas and stickers. So help me out, get some merch. You know, every piece of merch, whether it's a sticker on your truck or a hat on your head or a T-shirt, I get messages all the time about the great conversations that come out of that. Somebody sees the sticker. They say something. They saw it on a cup. They saw it on a water bottle. They saw it on the back of your truck. You want to talk Baja? Slap a Slow Baja sticker on your rig or put a Slow Baja hat on your head or a T-shirt

on your back or carry that amazing, amazing deluxe canvas bag. That thing is beautiful. And you can get all that stuff at the Slow Baja store. Okay. Enough about that. I'll be back within the... another show before you know it, and it's going to be part two, Chris Collard. And until then, we tell about Mary McGee. She's the coolest lady. She had a friend Steve McQueen who said, you know, Mary? You kind of get out to the desert and ride dirt bikes with me. And she did. And you

know what? Steve loved Baja. And Steve said, Mary, Baja's life, anything that happens before or after, it's just waiting. You know, people always ask me, what's the best modification that I've ever me to slow Baja. Without a doubt, it's my Shielman seats. You know, Toby at Shield Man USA could not be easier to work with. He recommended a Vario F for me and a Vario F XXL for my navigator, Ted. His Ted's kind of a big guy. And Toby was absolutely right. The seats are great and they fit both of us perfectly. And let me tell you, after driving around Baja for over a year on these seats, I could not be happier. Shield Man, slow Baja approved, learn more and get yours at shieldman.com.

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