Slow Baja - Jerry L'Ecuyer On Travel And Tembo Tusk

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

As a young man, Jerry L’Ecuyer landed a dream job driving a camping tour bus that shuttled young, single foreigners on camping trips throughout the United States. “I still think about that job today. It was way too much fun, and they actually paid us. It was wrong.” A perk of the job, Jerry spent his off-seasons traveling and reconnecting with his new friends. “I learned to ski in Austria; I didn’t have a lot of worries; I was single. One of the off-seasons (1984), we did a real overland voyage from London to South Africa by truck.” In this Slow Baja conversation, we discuss that epic four-month drive from England to South Africa in a Bedford truck—meeting his South African wife, discovering “Overland” gear, and building a brand and a lifestyle around Tembo Tusk. It’s a little behind the man and a little behind the brand today with Jerry L’Ecuyer on Slow Baja. Check out Jerry’s San Felipe property here. Watch this Podcast on YouTube. Learn more about Tembo Tusk. Get your Baja Insurance here. Learn more about Slow Baja Adventures.

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. You know, I've long said it, ask your doctor if Baja is right for you. If you've been hankering to get down to Slow Baja,

you've got to check out the Adventures tab at Slow Baja. All my trips are there from my vintage extravaganzas in fall and summer to my fantastic winter expedition that's open to four by fours of NEH. Now, of course, you can bring something old, but this trip is perfect for modern rigs. Got a go fast camper or a rooftop tent on your taco? Let's go. Bring your gal. Bring your best Baja bud. Bring your dog. This slow Baja adventure is for you. We've got whale watching. We've got beach camping. Raul at Rancho LaBiota is going to roast a lamb on a spit that will change your life.

You know, I take care of breakfast and dinner on these trips, and it really does take the sting out of camping. Great food, private campsites, ranch stays, good dirt roads, and extraordinary people are the ingredients that make up a Slow Baja expedition. To find your trip, check out the Adventures tab at Slow Baja.com. But don't delay all my Slow Baja expeditions sell out. So you've got questions, hit that contact button, ready to book. use that slow Baja boarding pass at slowbaha.com slash shop and I look forward to seeing you in Baja soon.

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. 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. And on my last trip. I got to go to the state baseball championships and see some of our alums playing, some recipients of the Baja Baseball Gear Deliveries. And congratulations to Guerrera Negro and Muley, the Austenaros and the Cardinalitos won silver and bronze at the state championships. Big stuff. It's really fun to be there and fun to see them. All right, well, please help us continue this vital work. Make your tax deductible donation at the Barbers for Baja. Click, Barbers for Baja. dot org, click the baseball in Baja link, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really do. It is so amazingly gratifying to 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. Hey, well, thanks for tuning into today's Slow Baja. My heaping dose of gratitude goes out to Kurt Williams. That's right, Slow Baja alum, Kurt, Williams at Cruiser Outfitters in Salt Lake City. I was out in Salt Lake City for the Cruiser Fest and reached out to Kurt to see if I could just catch a ride to the event with him. And he said, hey, he's already at the event. He was pushing trucks around and setting up chairs and doing all that stuff that board of director folks get to do in front of a big event, big charity event. But he said, get over to the shop. Pick up that H.J.Z 77. I need to look that thing up. That's a really cool

right-hand drive diesel Japanese domestic market 1990s lane cruiser and I went to the shop and I picked it up and I had the coolest car, coolest truck in Salt Lake City for the entire weekend. It was really kind of Kurt to let me use that loaner and it was great for the folks at Cruiser Fest to see that cool truck. So Kurt, thanks. It was also lovely to see Ivan Stewart, a Slow Baja alum. He was the guest of honor and he just has so many great stories to tell. I really do hope I get to sit down with him again and get some more of those stories again. The guy who's just had quite a life and it was just terrific that they honored him at Cruiser Fest and he got to share some of those Toyotas in Baja stories. All right, today's show, Jerry from Tembo Tusk. Now, you know, I don't travel with any cooking gear and

I have eaten an awful lot of meals through the kindness of others as I've been traveling up and down Baja cooked on Jerry's scottel, the Tembo Tusk Scottle. So I wanted to reach out to Jerry. I had a chance to see him at Overland Expo and get a few meals off of that scottel. And we sat down, we had a nice talk, got a little bit behind the man and a little bit behind the brand. So without further ado, Jerry from Tembo Tusk today on Slow Baja. Hey, it's Michael Emery, Slow Baja, and I'm delighted to be here at Overland Expo. The Expo is over. We're having a Mexican lager, a Slow Baja Mexican lager for my friends at Motos Sonora.

I'm with the guru, Jerry from Tembo Tusk, the scottled master, and I want to say thanks. I've had many, many good meals cooked on a scotl. You know, I don't travel with food or cooking equipment. I travel with beer and tequila. And so many people along my Baja life have cooked a beautiful meal for me on a scotl, including Daniel on the camera. Hello, Jerry, say hello. I don't know how to pronounce your last name. Well, my last name is French-Canadian.

Liqueuie is how you pronounce it. Yes, I like to drink liquee. But most people just go to Jerry. Jerry. And I'm okay with it. Yeah, and so Jerry, I don't know if I've ever heard anybody say anything negative about you. People love you. You're like a thing.

Well, you know, I believe in treating people the way I want to be treated. And if you're mean to them, I don't see the point of it. You know, life is short. And, you know, I want to be treated properly. And so I treat them properly. I think it's just a proper way to live. Yeah. And it's not that difficult.

Yeah. And it's a small world here, and you make a great product, and people love it, and people love you. And I want to hear about Tembo Tusk and the Scottle, but I really want to hear about, I know you've done some amazing travel. Mm-hmm. Used to be called car camping. Some call it overlanding now.

But you did it. Back in 1984, when I was heading off to college, you were traveling Africa. Yeah. I had interesting jobs when I was young. And one of them was to drive camping tour buses. We had a driver. I was a driver. We had a tour guide and a cook.

We went all over the United States. Wow. And the clientele was mostly Australian, New Zealand, South Africa, England. Germany, Israel, and any number of the other European countries. And it was a, you know, 18 to 31 was the age group. And most people were single. And that was introduction to, I did a lot of camping as a youngster with the family. But that was, you know, we camped all over the United States.

And fantastic. I still think about that job. today. It was way too much fun. They actually paid us. It was wrong. But... I like it. Slow Baja approved. Then on the off seasons, you know, I would go to Europe and one, you know, I learned to ski in Austria. So it was an interesting life at the time. You know, I didn't have a lot of worries and I was single and so on. But one of the trips I took on the off season was to go to Africa. And we did a real overland trip from London to South Africa by truck. And what sort of truck did you do that? It was a Bedford truck.

We were about 10 or 12 of us in the truck and we camped the whole way through Africa. Took about four months to get through because the roads, they may be different today, but then Africa was one road and it was dirt and it went, you know, and you went through each country. We went through countries that we couldn't go through today, you know, whether it's war or, you know, any number of things that are currently happening in the world. And there's some countries then that we couldn't go to that you could go to now. But we would camp in small African villages. You know, we went through, you know, we went through Morocco, Algeria, Niger, you know,

all the way through, we went through the Congo, Rwanda, you know, Burundi, and found our way all the way down to South. Africa. So tell me a little bit about what happened before you left, all the things that people told you about, all the scary information that you were probably given thoughtfully by caring folk. And what was the actual experience once you actually got there? Well, I grew up in a time when we didn't have internet. We didn't have Facebook, Instagram, And so you didn't have people, I mean, parents were always, you know, be careful, you know, that's the usual stuff. And they were worried.

But we didn't have as much information quickly. There were countries that we knew we couldn't go into. I remember at the time, I needed to get a, not a passport, but a visa to certain countries in Africa. and I had to have a separate passport because I was going to South Africa. I had a South African version and then all of Africa version. And the two could not mix.

Those were the, you know, that was apartheid at the time. And so, you know, you'd have different stamps. Those were the things that we were informed about. And we knew that, like Zimbabwe was a place that we were suggested that we don't go. at the time because they were just finishing a revolution and it was not a safe place to go. We did manage to go there, but we were careful. He says with the glint in his eye, we did manage to go there, but we were careful.

And you left in a Bedford truck from London and drove south through Europe. We came through France, went through the Pyrenees, went into Spain, crossed the Gibraltar, and went into Algiers. through Morocco, the Atlas Mountains. Can I ask a little bit about how long that took to get through Europe? Between three and a half, about three and a half months for the total trip. The total trip. Yeah, the trip through Europe, but we were in hurry. You were just trying to get there.

Yeah, it probably took us about four days to get through the European park. The equivalent of passing through San Felipe to get to Baja Suor. Yes, yes. You're on your way. And stopping and having tacos. Yeah, okay. French style. All right.

So, we were talking about sort of preconceived notions, but you were mentioning that without the internet, without all the information that we have today at our fingertips, maybe your ignorance was a little bit bliss. A little bit. I think news didn't travel across

the world as quickly. And so right now I think because the news travels so quickly, people get inflamed very quickly. And suddenly you're welcome or you're not welcome in a certain place. And it can happen in a heartbeat. It took months for that kind of information to maybe get through there.

And, you know, if somebody was unhappy with another country, it might take a little bit more time for it to become a problem. Whereas today, that problem is almost instantaneous. And I think it makes the world a much more dangerous place today than it was, you know, 30, 40 years ago. And the funny thing to say that, when we were going through Africa, we were all telling each other, gosh, I wish I'd done this 30 years. years ago. Of course, you know, we couldn't because I wasn't born. But we were, we felt like the people who did it 30 or 40 years before saw the real Africa. And I'm sure people going today wish they'd seen my Africa when I saw it. And I think you mentioned, you know, how was I received? Throughout Africa, we were well received. We did go, we went through

Cameroon and from Cameroon to the Central African Republic, which is also just above the Congo. And the Cameroon border closed as we were passing through because they had a coup. And as we passed through that border, rocks were being thrown at the truck. And we didn't know why. We learned about the coup after we'd gone through. That was probably the only place where we weren't, didn't feel welcome and felt a little bit in danger. And I think whatever was going on in Cameroon in the border area, affecting us and as we got through there everything was fine. And so you camped a lot as a kid.

You did this amazing job that you actually got paid for driving campers, camping across the United States, international campers. You must have a wonderful sense of adventure and have kind of a desire for adventure, I'm assuming. Well, I'd love to travel. Yeah. And we try, I try to travel as often as I could. I'd like say off-season, I'd learn to ski in Austria, or I'd go to the Pyrenees and ski there. The Africa trip was another.

And was this all because you had met somebody on one of your American trips who said, here's where I live, you have a friend, you have a place to stay? Well, you know, was it a girl? God forbid it was a girl. I had friends all over the world by that point. Yeah, that's what I was getting to. I had friends in Australia, friends in South Africa. friends in England, friends in the Netherlands. But I did meet somebody special on one of my trips.

I met my wife on my future wife on one of the camping trips. And we would, she worked in the fashion industry and she would fly to New York for meetings or shoots or whatever. And I would fly to New York for the weekend. And surprisingly flights were cheap then. And it cost about it, you know, I didn't have any money. It cost a hundred bucks to fly to New York. And other times I would fly to South Africa.

She happened to be South African. And it took us about six years of long distance dating to finally figure it out. And she moved to the States. And, you know, we got married. We're, I don't know, 30, 31. But, you know, we'd met and we were in our 20s. Well, meeting a beautiful. beautiful South African girl and spending time in South Africa is a pretty good segue

to this thing, the scottal. Yes. Which everybody loves the Tembo Tusk, Scottle. So how did it come about that you created a business about making this South African cooking device? Well, the scotl was not our first product. Tembo tusk was started because I couldn't find products I needed to go camping. on the market.

And one of them, you know, we had a fridge, you know, a little 12-volt fridge. Turns out they're heavy. Who knew? Well, especially if they're loaded full of food. Exactly. Or beer or whatever is in there. And I used to load it. I had a drawer system in my laying cruiser. I'd put it on the drawer system, strap it down. But because it's a fridge and not a cooler, you're in it. I had it, you know, my son was 10 or 12 years old and in and out of the fridge all day long.

So every time we'd be in it, I'd pull it off the drawer system, put it on the tailgate. And I thought, I'm going to hurt myself soon. Sure. So I thought, you know what, I need a slide that drops down to the tailgate. And there was one in Australia. So I contacted the Australian company, and they wouldn't sell it to me. They wouldn't ship it. Turns out the shipping was more expensive than the product.

And they just shut me down. So I said, ah, it can't be that hard. I'll make my own. The idea was there. They had the original idea. but I made an original slide concept. And, you know, I built one, you know, and I started telling people on the internet,

hey, look what I did. You know, it's kind of fun. And they said, oh, if you make one, we'll buy it. And I started believing the press clippings. And I built one. And everyone said, we'll buy one. We'll buy one. It's like, so I'd said, oh, this is serious.

I went and patented and went to the first Overland Expo in Arizona. 15 years ago. And I, you know, I had my land cruiser and one sample, you know, my prototype, which was really a rickety prototype. But I got one customer and he bought it. Wow. And now I had to actually make it.

Sure. The prototype wasn't, you couldn't sell it. But so now I had like six weeks to make one. And that's what started the company. You know, I started the name. Some people ask where Tembo Tusk comes from. And just to make it real tight, we were trying to figure out the name of the company. And we kept going, well, I've got the fridge, and I'm pulling it off the drawer system,

putting it on the tailgate. And then I pick it up again and I put it in. So it needs to be something strong. And it kind of looked like elephant tusks. And we're going, well, elephant tusks. But the wife being from South Africa, and she goes, why don't we call it an African name? And Tembo means elephant in Swahili. So it's Tembo Tusk.

We like the Tusk part. And we had a friend do the logo, and it was like, it was beautiful. And we wanted our logo to look like an old-fashioned steamer trunk stamp on a steamer trunk, because they always look like they could use a little bit more ink. And that's where the logo came from in the name. And now you know. And then, now getting to the scottel, that's 2010. By 2014, we had a South African version of a scottle,

because that's where it comes from, and we bought it in South Africa. But we'd had it for a long time. And, you know, probably 20 years. The plastic feet were breaking. The burner wasn't working. And I thought, next time we go to South Africa to visit family,

we're going to buy a new one. Unfortunately, they didn't have Campion. scotles anymore. They had five deep scottles that you put in your backyard and it's like, this is terrible, I can't use this camping. We went home disappointed and decided, I'm going to make my own. And we used a hero desk, put legs on it, put a burner on it, made a cage, all homemade in the garage and took it to an event that one of the local off-road clubs was doing and people couldn't stop taking pictures of it. And they were, everyone was going, you got to sell one of these.

We started making them. We'd make 10 at a time. And by the time I got to the 10th month, it was gone. So I started buying, making 20 at a time, gone. We were making 50. And then pretty soon we were making 500 at a time. Wow. And we couldn't keep up.

And Tembottos went from a hobby company to a real company. And we haven't looked back since. Outstanding. And we've had such fantastic. customers who love to cook. And I think what inspires me about that, and again, like I'm not cooking. I just see people cooking and I'm enjoying what they're cooking on your product. And so I have, and I will just be straight up with you, Jerry.

I have an affinity and a deep appreciation for what you're doing and that you're also doing it in such a high quality manner and kind of unashamedly, Buy it once, cry about it if you must, but buy it once for a lifetime. Well, I don't like to buy things twice. I don't either. And all the products that we sell typically are there because I needed it. Right. I couldn't find it on the market. I make it. There's no point making junk. And so you make a good product that's going to last. And that's what we've done.

The scottal is, it's a, your grandkids are going to have it. Right. Our slides, we do the same thing. We make a number of products. and they're all, you know, built to last. And again, we're so lucky to have such great customers. Yeah. They love our products and, you know, we love them back. Yeah. Well, were you, I'm just guessing you were a tinkerer,

or did you tinker because you had to because you were looking for something that literally did not exist. Well, you know, I have an engineer in my head. But my dad was a mechanical engineer. And, but I didn't really have. have the mathematical smarts to be an engineer. But I still had one in my head and I loved to tinker.

You know, the garage at home was not a home for a car. Right. It was a workshop. Same in my house. I never had a car in the garage that wastes the space. Although I love cars, I mean, I love cars, but they don't belong in the garage because I got a workshop in there and always tinkered. Like I say, I worked for months to try to figure out how to make the drop-downs

It probably took us two years of refining it until we were able to bring it out on the market. And Scottel didn't quite take so long, but it probably took a year of tinkering to get it right. You know, people think it's easy, but there's a lot of tinkering. There's a lot of tinkering to get it right. And make it a viable product. And other products that you sell, you've got a whole range of solutions. And we're only going to do this, what do I want to call it, this, a blatant self-promotion here for one minute, Jerry.

So blatant self-promotion for one minute for you, other products that you sell. And then we're going to get into talking about your FJ40 and AHA and all the other things. Well, you know, we make camp tables. We make slides. Obviously, we started the company with slides. Funny thing is people come and go, oh, I didn't know you made slides. Because the scottle is sexy. That's the thing.

And that's what everyone sees. That's what everybody knows you for. But we make slides for all the different fridges that are on the market. And we're probably, I think, the only manufacturer that makes American-made product slides for the off-road market. Most of them are made offshore. And so we're quite proud of that. All of our products are made in America. And we might have some smaller products like our stoves come from Korea,

mostly because they're not made here. We cannot buy them here. Yeah. But if we're able to, they're made here. Gotcha. Well, we're going to take a quick break for our friends at Baja Bound to tell you about Baja insurance. You have a place in Baja.

You have a land cruiser. We're going to be right back with Jerry, whose last name I still cannot pronounce, from TomboCross. Call me Jerry. In one minute. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border. 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, we're back with Jerry from Tembo Tusk, and we are talking about his amazing company and his amazing sense of adventure. But we're going to take a little transition now because Jerry, I understand, has an FJ40. I do, but I'm going to start from the beginning. Tell me. My first car, I'm in high school. And to be honest with you, I don't understand what my parents were thinking. They let me buy an MGB roadster.

Terrific. What year was that? It was a 1965 MGB. I rebuilt it from bumper to bumper. I rebuilt the engine. I rebuilt the transmission, painted it. I had so much fun. It wasn't right. And like I say, I don't know what they were thinking, but I'd appreciated it.

And I, towards the end of owning that vehicle, I started taking it off road and places it shouldn't be going. And that's what... Were you a Southern California kid? Yeah, I grew up in the desert pretty close by. Yeah, yeah. We go visit friends in the desert. Good easy dirt nearby. Yeah.

Okay. And we'd take the MG out there. And after a while, it was like, you know what, I think I need a different vehicle. And I bought a... I sold that. And I'll actually still miss it. but I'll get to that later. I bought a Subaru wagon, four-wheel drive.

What year was this? It was 1978. Okay, so Subaru was pretty new. Subaru was very new. You were a little eclectic? Yeah, I mean, that was very different for me. But to me, the 1978 Subaru was the best-looking Subaru. Because 1979, they changed it.

Okay. And it was ugly. 78 was beautiful. They had little bull bars in the front. and jackman rims on the side, white jackmans, and off-road tires. I went everywhere in that Subaru. Off-roading everywhere. It was so much fun.

So that got me into off-roading. And then we'll segue a little bit from there. You know, life happens. You get married. You start a career. I became a real estate broker. And, you know, that was my boring career for the next 20, 30 years. But my wife's, I gave my wife an anniversary or a wedding presents and I bought her an MGB,

a red MGB, which we still have. Fantastic. And we've been married for 34, 35 years. And it's time for me to actually start working on it again. I'm sure all the rubber bits are done. But fast forward to the early 2000s. I got a hinkling to get back into off-roading. Brian, my son, you know, he was getting to be about four years old, and he was going to go camping.

He was going to enjoy camping no matter what. And so I bought an FJ 40, 67 FJ40. Wow. And it was in good shape. I still have it today. And it needs a little work today, but I love that truck. It was so much fun to drive. And then a little bit further along, I got a,

an FJ 60 because the FJ 40s for me was a little bit hard to camp with a child. Oh, for sure. Yeah, not enough room. So I wanted a wagon that we could put a rooftop tent on and all that. And overlanding was just starting. It was very new in 2006, 2007. And I actually bought my tent from South. I went to South Africa, bought the EZion tent, bought a roof rack, and shipped it to California. And that's how I got my tent. I got a true African tent. Amazing.

And so I also, you know, I own, I still own the FJ 60, drove that for 10 years. Went everywhere. And often, you know, it was at the trade shows. Fantastic. And so how did you start going to Baja? You know what? We had a group of friends in probably 2006 or seven that we all camped together. And we would go to Baja for Thanksgiving.

Okay. And we would go San Felipe. San Felipe. All right. And we just fell in love with Baja. And we fell, we got a little carried away, and we bought a piece of property. We bought a Campo, just south or north of Portocetus. Okay. And about 10 miles north of Portisetus and 40 miles south of San Felipe. We got 104 acres there. Terrific. And 600 feet, 600 odd feet of beachfront. Well, maybe we have to have a slow Baja vintage visit. Because it used to be a campground.

Probably 50 years ago it was a campground. Wow. So there's a little bit of flat spots. And we actually went and put flat spots near the beach. And if you look real hard on Google Maps, you can find our property because there's a big seven on our property where we put dirt so we could bring a motor home on there. Okay. And, but yeah, we've gone to, well, we went there with all the motor homes and we would just hang out there. Okay.

And then I think 2008 things started going, becoming interesting in Baja and the economy hits and, you know, people stopped going to Baja for a few years. Yeah, a couple of tough years. A couple of tough years. So if any, it might be in a net cycle again. I'm not sure they've recovered. So if anybody wants to buy 104 acres in Baja, let me know. I have some. All right.

Well, we'll have a link in the show notes, folks, with the Google Earthshot. Jerry, you've been pretty generous here. I really do want to wrap it up with what adventure means to you. You've created all these products that have helped people adventure, find their adventure, camp out, do these things more comfortably, more easily, what have you. Why? What does that mean to you to get out in the dirt and camp? camp. It's exciting. What does it do for you? And I find that the front windshield of a vehicle

is the best seat in house. And I'm a bad passenger. I want to drive. I need to be driving, but I want to see this huge expanse, whether you're going cross country on the pavement or in the hills. It's getting out of the, a lot of us, including myself, have possibly mundane jobs. I mean, I was a real estate broker for, I've retired from that. Actually, I found that I can't retire. I'm constantly doing something else.

I've tried to retire three times now. But it's the excitement of traveling. I mean, whether we're flying somewhere or driving somewhere, it's, you know, you get interesting food, interesting people. And a lot of people have not left their city or left their county. or left their state or left their country depending.

And although in the United States, we're very lucky. There's so much to see here. You know, we live in 50 states. It's really like 50 countries. And you go from one state to the other. It's literally like crossing a border. And some states may be like two different countries. It could be.

Or three if it's California. Sometimes. But you can, it's like going to different countries. And I know people, you know, the rest of the world go, you know, Americans aren't. well traveled. You know, we travel a lot, but we travel within our country. But I find it exciting to, you know, to leave and see the rest of the world. But I've also been lucky that I've seen a lot in the states. I don't think I've been to all 50 states, but I've been pretty close.

And I've been to quite a handful of countries. And some exotic ones, you know, from Europe all the way through Africa. Well, we're going to leave it right there, folks. Jerry, where's the place for people to find out about Tembo Tusk? Well, you can if you go to Google Tembo Tusk, you can see it on the back there. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, and we have a website that's Tembotus.com and come see what we do. And like I say, it's all stuff that I use. We use it every time. That truck is is not a show, it's not a show queen. We actually take it off roads. It's a real, well-used vehicle. Yes, it is. Amazingly, you've been to all 15 overland expos.

Yes, we've started at the beginning. We didn't know. It was new at the time. And we've been to all 15 of the expos. And we find it hard to believe that that many have gone by. Yeah. It feels new every time. An amazing, amazing expansion of this world.

Yes. That you're an integral part of. You talk about car camping. We've all car camped and overlanding might be fancy car camping. We were trying to close off, but I think we're going to going on a little bit. Yeah, yeah, we'll take another minute to get to the philosophical statement to wrap it up. We, you know, car camping and over landing, not that different except it's a little more comfortable

today. Yeah. When we car camped, but you know, the difference is when I was camping with my parents, we went to National Parks. We never did wild camping. Okay. I do a lot of wild camping, which is BLM land. We're lucky in the western states.

We have BLM land. But I rarely camp in a campground. Right. We almost always camp out in the woods. or in the desert. And I like that. I'm not crazy about going into a campground and it's a little restrictive.

I'm with you. I'll be camping at Jerry's spot south of San Felipe that is for sale, folks. We'll see if it's Slow Baja approved or the next time we use it for a campground. Jerry, really nice to have you here and to spend a little time

with getting to know you. And thank you. Thank you. you for your amazing scottal that has produced so many meals cooked by others for me. So I really appreciate the work you've done. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for talking with me and letting other people know. Yeah. And thanks for keeping Baja's Lo.

Oh, very much. So thank you. And Daniel, thanks for your work on the camera. Really great. It's so great to have Daniel Brewer right here filming this stuff for me. It's a terrific thing and I can't say how sad I am that you're going back to the East Coast, buddy. So thank you. All right. Cheers. I think we did it. Hey well I hope you like that show Jerry. He's just a cool cat. He's been everywhere. Glad I got a chance to talk to him and I really have had

some lovely meals off of a scottle. I'm not interested in cooking yet, but if I was, I'd be investing in a scottel for sure as a beautifully made product and really it's a joy to hear a little bit about it. All right. Well, you know, if you like what I'm doing, this is a little call to action for you. I've got to ask you right now. Take a second. second, go over to slowbaha.com, click that donate button, drop a taco in the tank. Let me know that you do like the show. Let me know that you're a supporter. It really does help me get down the road. And it really does take a lot to do this show in person, talking to people where they are, and then bringing the show to you. It does cost a lot.

And I would really greatly appreciate if you could drop a taco in the tank. Now, if you can't, I get it. I'm going to ask you to do something else, though. Take a second. Drop a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. Say something nice about while you're still listening while you're still listening to me pleading with you right now and then share the show with a friend.

I know you got a Baja friend who'd like to listen to this show. Just copy the link, send it to them. Best way for me to grow this thing is word of mouth, so I appreciate if you could do that. Okay, well, it's that time of the show where I tell you about

Mary McGee, Off Road Motorsports Hall of Famer Slow Baja alum. Mary McGee, looking forward to bring you new another conversation with her. She had a pal named Steve McQueen and he was one of the coolest cat who ever creates the big screen, but Steve loved Baja. And he said it, Baja is life.

Anything that happens before or after is just waiting. You know, people always ask me, what's the best modification that I've ever made to slow Baja? Without a doubt, it's my Sheelman seats. You know, Toby at Shield Man USA could not be easier to work with. He recommended a Vario F for me and a VXXL for my navigator, Ted. This 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. Shieldman, slow Baja approved, learn more and get yours at shieldman.com.