The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: Summer Camp

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

https://www.facebook.com/RaisingValuesPodcast/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.instagram.com/raisingvaluespodcast/http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.prepperbroadcasting.comhttps://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastGillian and Phil embarked on the annual MoF Summer Camp, an event that began as a way to bring together like minded people in an environment where they could comfortably bring their families. What it has morphed into is something truly special. It has become that annual trip where the Rabalais' get to see their chosen family, their tribe. Where people from wildly different backgrounds and experiences feel free to be themselves for a long weekend. Summer Camp is a place to make memories and friendships that leave each of us wishing the next year would come a little sooner.Raising Values Podcast is live-streaming our podcast on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.family, traditional, values, christian, marriage, dating, relationship, children, growing up, peace, wisdom, self improvement, masculinity, feminity, masculine, feminine

Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast, where the traditional family talks. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can support the Raising Values Podcast through Patreon. Phil and Gillian are behind the mic, and we hope you enjoy the show. welcome back to raising values good morning everyone it's been quite a while it has been a hot minute um i know we missed two shows i can't remember if we've missed three but i know we missed two shows but it's been busy i think it was only two, but I don't know. Well, everybody from the Matter of Facts crew knows because a lot of them were there. And I don't remember how much we talked about our raised values, but we started two years ago with the Matter of Facts podcast before this show was even created.

We started doing an annual summer camp for the patrons. Well, it was in the spring at first. Yeah. We've since moved it from Tornado Alley in the springtime. Morning, Ben. So we've moved it to the summer now. That way more of our patrons can, well, you and Andrew's patrons, because Raising Values doesn't have any patrons yet.

I mean, I'm sure there's, I'm sure, I know that quite a few of our patrons that originally came with us, for a matter of facts, I know that a lot of them watch Raising Values. Yeah, I know no doubt about that. But they originally started with y'all's podcast. So, but we moved it to the summer so that kids who were in school until the first of June, the first week of June, which we get out like the third week of May down here. I don't know why. I don't know if it's like, anyway, that way more families could come on the camping trip. So we moved it to June and we went to Tennessee this year and we got to see everybody. And we had 21 people there this year. I tell you what, I look forward to this trip every year.

And I wouldn't even say half of it. I would say like 20% of the anticipation is where we're going and getting to see that part of the country. And the rest is getting to hang out with our chosen family. And just being with these people who come from all walks of life. But we all have this one thing in common. And it is that we're all preppers. But we all have this one thing in common, and it is that we're all preppers and that we've all decided that that's how we're going to care for our family and all that stuff. And the crazy thing is, we don't even talk about prepping on this trip. I mean, kind of, but it's not a...

I don't even feel like that's an accident, though. When you and me and Andrew sat down with the original concept of this, like we go to Prepper Camp every year. You and Piper haven't gone every year, but Andrew and I have gone, I don't know, six years in a row at this point. Morning, Kyle. It's been a lot. Morning, Kyle.

And Prepper Camp is focused around Prepper Camp. It's focused around the classes and it's focused around bringing in relative newcomers to prepping and give them kind of like a feet wet full immersion experience into this world so they can figure out what parts of it work for them and their families and when we started talking about doing this we ran the we ran the opposite direction like we did not want to do preparedness classes we don't want to do preparedness classes. We don't want to do schedules. We don't want all that. My original concept for this and what I have reinforced over and over and over is if this is not an event that you can bring your non-prepper family to, then we're not doing it right. The whole point is to...

I'm laughing at the comments. Ben and Kyle. Phil is not glowing. Phil is drinking coffee, waiting for it to allow me to mimic adult human behavior. So time out for a second on this episode and what we're talking about. Last night, well, Wednesday, Piper decided that she wanted to have a summerween party. So it's celebrating Halloween in the summer. I'm all for it because Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. So she got in the attic and she... Dad got in the attic.

Dad got in the attic and she took all of the Halloween decorations and she decorated her room. And she had a friend over last night and, you know bags of candy teenage girls the halloween movies her friend showed up in a waffle costume piper was a ghost y'all it was the coolest experience it was so fun we watched halloween movies until 11 o'clock last night and i think they probably had a sugar crash around midnight but how fun this girl is girl is, Piper is just so, I just love her enthusiasm and creativity. And so we had a Halloween, no, Summerween party last night. So the house was full of, well, teenage girls. So Piper, Bill is glowing, but it's not because he's just a radiant beauty. You are a radiant beauty, baby. I think it's because the sun is shining outside.

Yes. We'll go with that. We'll go with that, Ben. So anyway, now back to the episode. Yeah. The whole idea of what started as the spring trip now has turned into summer camp is it has to be an event where you can bring your non-prepper spouses and kids to. It has to be something that, like we have some that have come camping with us now for three years in a row, and they're just not going to get down in a tent and sleep on the ground. Right. They prefer like cabins or lodges or whatever, and that's fine.

But that's why I've always said like, this is the trip where we meet everybody where they're at. This is the trip where we bring in people who aren't going too rough at the same degree everybody else. Well, this is the trip where we make this as like all inclusive as humanly possible so that everyone can come and everyone can bring everybody else yeah we always um we're always looking for a state park that has cabins tent pads or a lodge because like phil said not everyone's on the same level i didn't want to tent camp not in the summer although we had although we had amazing tent camping weather.

I even asked Phyllis, like, do you want to cancel the cabin and get a tent pad and go stay at the campsites? But we ended up staying at the lodge. I mean, not the lodge, the cabin, which actually worked out because one of the things that we do with Prepper Camp, I'm sorry. Well, we do this for Prepper Camp,. But for Summer Camp is everyone cooks a meal. And we're going to change that because there's so many people and there's so many families. And then there's just so much food. So what was it?

Four of us had cabins. And the cabins had a small kitchen, but enough that we can cook in the kitchen and everything. But I swear those cabins weren't big enough for all of us. I mean, it was close. We were stacked out on – we were staying in these fisherman cabins. So part of it was over water and the other – well, the whole thing was over water. About half.

Pretty much the whole thing was over water. thing was over water. And so half of the people were out on the porch, the balcony, looking over the water, doing their thing. And then everybody else was inside. I mean, it got so hot in those cabins because there were so many people. But I took pictures. It's definitely on our Facebook and Instagram, I think, pretty sure. Definitely on Instagram. And I'll reshare it if not. I don't think it's on our Facebook. But I took pictures when everyone got there.

So we all filed in on a Sunday. Various times, everybody was getting there, getting there, getting there. Now we see these people usually just twice a year. Typically, yes. And it's not everybody. Not everybody comes. That comes to prepper camp. They don't always come to the summer camp and vice versa. But to kind of just explain what this like it's it's really like going to um a family reunion with only the members of your family that you like it's like you don't get to you don't have to invite the people that you don't like in your family so because everybody has that right it's not just me

okay um anyway so only the cool kids get invited to the family reunion. And we all meet up somewhere. And this year it was in Tennessee. And, again, gorgeous. It was 50s at night and 70s during the day. And we just had the most amazing time. And, of course, we went on a hike to find a waterfall. And, boy, did we find the waterfall this year.

It was a four-and-a-half-mile hike up a mountain, down a mountain. 900 feet down into a valley. Yes. Well, we had to go up, down, down, and then up, up again. It was crazy. And there were some tears. And there were some definitely hurt feet. And the dogs, once we all got back to the

cabin the dogs all passed out i mean that we had eight dogs on this trip um which is always fun too because i'm a dog person so just having all those cuddly babies around was awesome um but we did we we did things where we knew we wanted to go on this one hike, and we went. We got to the end, and then we all decided. We looked out on the outlook at the waterfall, and you could see people down at the bottom. And they were all swimming in the water hole that the waterfall had created. I mean, this was a huge waterfall. And we were all looking at each other going, okay, well, now what?

and we're all looking at each other going, okay, well, now what? And then we look over to the sign that's directing us to the trail that goes down the mountain to the waterfall, and it's all in caps, very strenuous. With exclamation points. With an exclamation point. And so we look at each other, and we're all like, let's do it. You want to do it? I want to do it.

I don't know if I want to do it. Let's do it. Okay, we're going to do it. Y'all, this was a hike. It was a hike. It was crazy. It was actually, I mean, of course there was a path, but the path was all rocks. It was all boulders and you're climbing over and under and around and down. And, you know,

it was crazy. And then every now and then you get to a stream that has a bridge and it's like flat surface, but only because they built a bridge. And then you're back over and under and around boulders and you're climbing through crevices. It was, it was such an amazing just adventure down that trek and then you get to the bottom and it's like so worth it because now you have this 900 foot i don't know i'm guessing waterfall and the water is beyond cold i mean like painfully cold so i took took my shoes and socks off because i was like let me put my ankle in this cold water and see if it'll help. You regretted your life decisions. I regretted it because my foot hurts so bad. So when my leg gets cold, my leg that I tore the foot off of, when it gets cold,

it's painful. It gets in your joints and it can't. this is why dad did not put his feet in the water and kept his nice fluffy warm wool hiking socks and hiking boots on yeah because i took one look at that i was like nope that's a that's a big nope call me uh call me whatever you want no so the kids went swimming i don't know how uh piper piper got into her waist and then all of the the the kids from um wisconsin who are used to the cold they were swimming like it was just a normal swimming pool and i'm like well for me like going under and everything i'm like i can't even stand it on my feet let alone i would not have gotten in and piper's in like a long sleeve shirt uh swims swimsuit whatever it's called rash guard and she was just like she turned around at one point and

her face was just like this is grueling but i want to be here and i hate this but i love this and then um the kids from georgia you could tell like they eased in and they eased in and finally they got through but they're they're always like full of adventure so um it was it was really cool i need to circle back through some of these comments uh i think we already said good morning to ben kyle and joe. If not, I'm catching you all up now. Joe, I see where you said y'all didn't go to the MOF camping trip, but Tennessee is a great vacation spot. I mean, this is our first year doing the summer camp in Tennessee,

and I think what we've committed to doing is to hopping it around to different locations every year. Because the whole idea is like part of the reason why we miss so many people at prepper camp is because it's all the way over in north carolina yeah and my thought process was if we if we make the summer camp jump around every year go a little further north a little further south whatever we can catch people because then it's closer for them it's gonna going to like next year, we've already started talking about going to Michigan. I think that's pretty well. Yeah,

that's pretty much it. We were going to Michigan. It's, it's going to be a two day drive for us, but it's going to be super convenient for Andrew and for all of our friends in Michigan and several of our patrons in Michigan. It's going to be super convenient for our patrons in Wisconsin. We have one in Kentucky.

We have one in Kentucky. We have one in Kentucky. We have one in Illinois. So the idea of hopping it around means that some years, someone's going to be like, I just can't commit to a two-day drive. And then other years, someone's going to be like, oh, that's like three hours away from me. Yeah. That's what we're hoping for anyway. And we do take into account where everyone is from. We look at the patrons and we're like, okay, we have this one here, here, and here.

And most of our patrons are in the east, you know, side of the country. So I don't think we would ever do something out west. I mean. I would love it. I'd love to go to Arizona. In order to dwell. And the other thing I'm looking at is like, I want to try to do these where we have someone who can kind of scout the area for us. And so before I would ever say, hey, let's go over at...

Let's go out west. I'd have to have a patron out that direction to, like, help us track down state parks and, like... Because there's only so much we can tell from just researching it online you know i'm saying like i want somebody that's going to be able to tell me like you don't trust in my sleuthing skills i don't want to end up in a lake foss situation where the the park looked beautiful on the internet but it was mosquito hell when we got there yeah fair point yeah but okay all right gotcha anyway no and uh ben no i did not turn the breaker off on the girls last night Yeah, but okay. All right. Gotcha. Anyway. No, and Ben, no, I did not turn the breaker off on the girls last night.

I don't think they scare that easily. I just let them have their fun, and I went to bed at midnight because I was zonked. Ben asked, what state park? It was the last two years we went to Lake de Grey in Arkansas, which for anybody that hasn't been there, it's an absolutely beautiful state park. And it's about a 30-minute drive to Hot Springs, Arkansas, which is one of my favorite cities in this country. And, yes, you can go get in the hot springs and go to the bathhouse and all that stuff. And it's really beautiful. If you go to Lake de Grey though, I definitely recommend the

yurts. The yurts. So that's one of the reasons why we kept going back to Lake de Grey the last two years was because the yurts are on a little peninsula. And so the Matter of Facts crew would rent out all of the yurts. And then there was one of the, I think one of the most beautiful legs of, or, you know, areas of the campground were right there, right off the peninsula. So we were all pretty much right there together. But when we all rented out the yurts, I mean, it was like a matter of fact party on the peninsula. Yeah. It was literally like having, it was almost like having a private island. Yeah.

Because like almost. It was so much fun. Except for that one family of tourists that decided to come and squat, you know, basically at the end of our. Yeah, they parked outside of our yurt. Yeah. Anyway. But other than them, I mean, like no one came down there. No one drove.

There's, it's a dead end. It's like, it's a loop through. So there's no reason to come down there unless you're down there. Everybody from the Yard campsites would just come down our way in the morning and basically go home in the evening when they were ready for bed. And yeah, it was a party. The kids could go jump in the lake if they wanted. The adults could sit on the porch or sit around a fire and goof around. I mean, it was great. on the porch or sit around a fire and goof around. I mean, it was, it was great. And this year going to Fall Creek Falls, which is where we were this year in Tennessee, you know, a lot of us opted

for cabins because yurts, I don't think were an option at this part. No, we didn't have yurts. But a lot of us opted for cabins and, you know, I, my preference is always going to be to go camping because I just, I enjoy the camping experience more. But I'll be the first to admit that when you're talking about hosting a bunch of people, a cabin makes things a lot nicer. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Not just that, but we had to make these reservations nine months in advance. And the problem we were butting up against was the weather turned out to be freaking beautiful

but if it hadn't been we would have legitimately been able to cram everybody in one of those cabins to hang out and keep dry and you know to to do our thing as it turned out we would have been just fine getting getting a campsite over by like tommy and tim and Andrew, that would have worked out just fine, but we didn't know that. You can't anticipate that. Excuse me. But anyway, I think we're all caught up.

Except, hi, Nina. Yep. Hi, Nina. As far as like, I know I dumped some pictures to the Matter of Facts Instagram page. I know that. I don't know.

I'm going to check right now. She either. I know for a fact she put some of them on her personal profile. I don't know if they made their way to Raising Values or not. They did not. So we will do that right now. Anyway. they did not so we will do that right now anywhere so you can go to the raising values instagram and see it's down in the show it's down in the show description i try to make that as easy as i can for y'all cool and if y'all don't know you know how to get if if you're here and you are not

familiar with the matter of facts podcast then just go on instagram and search matter of facts podcast and you should find it but i feel that i feel like that venn diagram probably has a lot of crossover yeah so so other than the camp other than the hike which i'm pretty sure my daughter's going to put me in the worst nursing home in existence after I forced her to. It wasn't, I didn't, we didn't have to force her to go down the hill. It was coming back up the hill that turned into the problem. Yeah. And that was when I had, I was riding a fine line of suck it up buttercup and I understand your feet hurt, you know.

Yeah, it was, that climb back up was it was rough it wasn't too bad I don't know I didn't think it was too bad I will be the first to admit now owing to doing quite a bit of stupid stuff when I was younger like I have I have injuries to my knees and my hip and my back and you things. And I'll be the first to admit my knees, especially my right knee, was starting to click and pop as I was coming up that hill. Yeah. I got to the point where, and I don't know if you noticed it, normally just for what, you know, biomechanically,

we're kind of creatures of habit. I always lead with my right foot. I started leading with my left whenever I would take a step up. Well, I have to. Because if I took a step up with my right foot, I started leading with my left whenever I would take a step up. Well, I have to. Because if I took a step up with my right foot, I mean, you'd get to a certain point and you could just feel the knee gritting. It was painful. Okay.

I'll do this in a little bit. Yeah. Well, because of my ankle, I have to decide, am I going to push up with the bad ankle and then take a step or am I going to push up with the bad ankle and then take a step or am I going to push up with this other ankle? And then it's, I have to also decide which foot am I going to land on when I'm going down. So it was really, I never ever want to not do something because I have an ankle injury. Like if I think that I can do it, I'm going to go do it. And when it said very strenuous in all caps with an exclamation point, I thought about it. I was like, what is very strenuous? And then the people coming up are

like, and then there's a woman who stopped us and she goes, don't feel bad about taking as many breaks as you can. And so I'm like, okay, what am I about to get myself into? Like, I physically, I think I can do this, but is my ankle going to be okay to do this? And I can tell you, I remember Caroline was like, we were all sitting around once we got to the bottom and I was like, this was so worth it. This was so, so worth it. And she goes, wait until you have to go back up and then tell me if it was worth it. And so we got back up and she goes, well, was it worth it? And I said, absolutely.

I don't think I would do it again, but it was totally worth it. Yeah. So we did that hike. I saw Kyle just queued in that he played through the pain. After that, we did a cavern tour, which after to the caves after the experience of the strenuous in all caps and exclamation points we we went to the cavern and we opted for the easiest least strenuous tour they had because there is somewhere apparently you're basically spelunking and i vetoed that immediately i'm like no i want easy

nice picture opportunities you know i ain't looking to kill myself two days in a row yeah so we didn't want to crawl over rocks no again in boulders no so we did we did a cavern tour do you remember what the name of the cavern was no you talk i'm gonna look i've i know i've got that i talk i don't know what i'm gonna talk about no so we did the cavern tours um and it was only a 45 minute but i was already hurting kyle i know you were hurting i know that it was we did the the least strenuous. Cumberland Caverns. Cumberland Caverns. Nice. It was nice. It was fun.

I mean, it's like every other cave tour you go into. You see the stalactites and stalagmites and the history of how it was found and all that other stuff. But it was just a nice little break. Because in Louisiana, we don't have caves. And if we do, they're full of water, but we don't have caves. We don't have waterfalls either. Waterfalls. So when we do these things, we really want to see it, which is going to be really fun next year when we go to Michigan, because the camping trip itself is going to be about a five or six days. So because it's

so far, we're going to try to make it worth everyone's drive. At least for us, it's a two-day trip. And, you know, five or six days together and then go home. But the Ravalets are going to be staying an extra week with Andrew to really see Michigan because when will we get back up there? I mean, it's not like we're going to be like, hey, let's go to Michigan this weekend. Yeah. And we don't fly anywhere.

There are reasons for that. I don't. Well, first of all, understand that I get phenomenally and intensely airsick. And me flying basically requires that I be sedated or I'm going to be miserable the entire flight. On top of the fact that everything about flying to me is just like this litany of you can't take this. You can't take this. You got to leave this at home.

You get it. You know, and I would just I would always rather like Gillian and I have talked about this. I would always rather, like Gillian and I have talked about this, if I have my pick for a vacation, let me load up the back of the truck with 600 pounds of camping gear and let me just go out in the woods. I'm happy as a hog and slob. But if I have to fly there, I mean, I would happily drive two days to get to Michigan rather than fly. Not even so. I think the drive is part of the vacation too although i i i don't mind flying you don't i don't i don't mind flying i did i used to work in aviation and i despise flying holly said that if we do go to michigan which we are that her and um h are gonna fly up there

and meet kyle and kyle's gonna drive and pick her up from the airport. So there you go, Kyle. Now you know. Weird silence. Oh, no, I'm just reading multiple comments. I know there are a lot of comments. I'm just, I'm reading multiple comments. I know there are a lot of comments. Joe said that if he goes into a cave, he expects to fight goblins and find dragons at the bottom and gold and lots of gold.

I always expect that too. It never happens. Never happens. We also put our hand for my girlfriends that read books or watch shows. Um, or watch shows. There was a, there was a really big, um, boulder that was just standing straight up and we all went up and put our hands on it. Like we were going to go through and find Jamie from Outlander. There was no Jamie.

There was no Outlander. There was no dragons or gold. Um, but we had a good time. And then, um, Kyle said we should all go to Michigan in a convoy. That's not a bad idea. Meet up somewhere. I don't know. I don't like convoying. No offense to anybody. True. I mean, you're talking to the guy here who convoyed through Iraq. Well, no. My issue is with convoying is that the amount of to not leave anybody behind, it requires everyone have a very fixed schedule.

And if somebody has to take a pee, the whole comboing has got to get off the road. Like my experience with comboing is that. I didn't think about that. Yeah. It gets to the point where I would rather just say this is where we're meeting up see y'all there that way everybody can plan their own trip and take their own time and if I have to jump off the road because

somebody needs a Celsius and a bathroom break it's not the whole convoy has to get off the road together because we all know that's going to happen multiple times so anyway so no yes Kyle I hear what you're saying no no convoys because especially with children with especially with women and children there is

zero opportunity to make like three to five vehicles stay together on the road without four extra trips for tiny bladders. Anyway. I'm right. Because it's always the women and children. It's always the women and children. You want to know how many stops I make going to Prepper Camp when it's just me? No.

I know. Anyway. Anyway. So that was our trip to Tennessee, getting to see our chosen family. Next trip is Prepper Camp, which I don't know if you can still buy tickets. I think you can. Tickets are still available. Campsites are going to be a hat trick at this point. I don't think there's anything left.

I think you're going to have to get an Airbnb that's close. I don't know if there's really any hotels that are close. So your only hope at this stage, bearing in mind that Prepper Camp is only a couple months away, your only hope of being able to stay at Orchard Lake would be in Tent City, which is the unimproved campsites where you bring in your own food, your own water, your own power, your own toilets. You rough it. And if that's your bag, then have fun with that. I wouldn't mind that.

My wife and daughter would absolutely flip their lid if they had to pee in to use water bottles. Yeah. their lid if they had to pee and use water bottles. So. Yeah. So anyway, so Prepper Camp is coming up. That's the next big trip. And then if you're a patron, we'll once Andrew and I figure out where exactly we're going in Michigan for June,

we have a couple of months to figure that out. And then like some itinerary, I know that there is talk about meeting up with Trek for a day and doing, what does he do? So Trek is the owner of the Michigan Defensive Firearms Institute, MDFI. We actually had him on Matter of Facts very recently with Kirk Kulik. And, um, you got to check that episode out. Yeah.

That was, that was, that was hard. That was hard for me to listen to as the interviewer, like anyway. But, um, so yeah,

Trek's been, I mean, he's prior service military. He's been in law enforcement. He's been a firearms instructor. He's, he's a man of many talents. But he basically told me, he said, if you're in Michigan, you have to stop by and say hi before you leave. So I flirted with the idea.

And we're really waiting on like a location and dates to line up. Once we have that solidified, I can go to Trek. and dates to line up. Once we have that solidified, I can go to Trek. But I talked to Trek about the possibility of maybe a private range day for those of us that come up there, maybe private class. Maybe if we can't arrange any of that, literally we'll just go bomb him and his wife at their property and hang around with them for a couple hours. But, you know, kind of one thing in front of the other.

We got to figure out where we're going dates lock that in and then i can start looking at extracurricular activities but i know that trek wants us stopping and see him i suspect i haven't talked to him about in a while but i'd be shocked if uncle randy didn't want us to oh that's a given like. We got to go see Uncle Randy and Aunt Doris. And, you know, they will be there at some point. I hope and I'm sure that they will be there at some point, especially if Andrew has anything to say about it, which he does. But at the end of the day, like, we have a couple of people that we want to see while we're up there. of people that we want to see while we're up there. And other than that, I suspect that the 2025, matter of fact, summer camp is going to be a lot like the former ones. It's always a come as you are, roam what you brung, do this at your level of comfort, no expectations,

no schedules, no obligations. If you want to just hang around the campfire for a day, then do that. And if you want to go into town, go do that. And if you want to go on a four and a half mile hike, go do that. But it's always been everyone is invited to come and like spend that time together more than anything else. Just for the pure fact of, like you said, like this, this feels like our chosen family. It's our tribe. Yeah.

This is a bunch of. Tribe is a good, I like that. This is a bunch of very like-minded people who the intention of doing this was always like, I feel like you could get most of us that are, you know, have been around the Matter of Facts podcast for several years. You could get most of us into a room and we'd get along pretty well because we had some shared ideas and interests. But the idea of this was always,

I want an event I can bring my wife and daughter to and you can bring your spouse and kids to and then we can get these families to come together in a way that's just more difficult at Prepper Camp. Yeah. Not that Prepper Camp is Yeah. And a lot- Not that Prepper Camp's not a family-friendly environment, but it's- Yeah, it definitely is.

But it's more of a work trip for us. And you go to classes, and you don't have to go to all the classes at Prepper Camp. You can decide what you want to do. And our tribe is usually up on the hill altogether at some point. And so if you're not in a class, you're up on the hill with everybody, either eating lunch, you know, there's all sorts of things. And so we kind of took that, we kind of took what we did at Prepper Camp and converted it a little bit into what we do at our summer camp. Made its own thing. Yeah. And it works out because we're all on a signal chat together. And so Tommy might put in the group, hey, the Benefields are doing this today.

We're going to meet up at the Nature Center at 10 o'clock. And then you get thumbs up. Hey, we'll be there. We'll meet you there. And then you get somebody else that says, I'll be doing this today at 10 o'clock. So you get thumbs up hey we'll be there we'll meet you there and then you get somebody else that says i'll be doing this today at 10 o'clock so if you want to do this and then i might text back and say i'm sitting my my butt on the patio reading my book at 10 o'clock so see y'all at lunch or whatever and there's no pressure there's no hard feelings there's nothing and but what normally how it works out is we usually do all the things together.

We don't want to miss out on the time together because not everybody's going to be there for the entire trip. You know, Tommy and the boys had to leave early, so we missed a day with them. And then not to get into like female-male dynamic, but the female dynamic at the summer camp is different. I think than it is at prepper camp. I feel like the girls, the women who come to prepper camp, I have, um,

we we've bonded. We've like got this friendship together. I mean, we have a book club now. We have a book club, which together. I mean, we have a book club now. We have a book club, which is, I mean, that's something fun that has come out of our summer camps. And so I talk to these women, not every day, not even every week, but we at least talk on a regular basis throughout the year. And then when we get to see each other in person, it's just like, you know, going home to your sister to see them.

And then our kids grow up together. Piper and Tess, which is Josh's daughter, met three years ago. I think one was in third grade and one was in fourth grade. I think that's the age that they were. They talk throughout the year. They like text message and all that stuff throughout the year. And so when Tess got there, it was like sisters reuniting and it was, well, let me tell you about this. And oh my God, let me show you this, this, you know, gift or let me show you this, whatever. It's, it's just very enduring. It's very sweet.

And it's nice to see the families come together. And I think, not that I think, I know that with this group of people, and even the group of people at Prepper Camp, that if something popped off, or we needed something, or prayers, or whatever, those people are always going to be there. Not to say that our families won't, but we know that we can count on those people, you know. be there not to say that our families won't but we know that we can count on those people you know and i even think that some of those people even though they live you know across the country would get in their cars or on a plane if they needed to to come help i know we would well i mean i i know thinking back to like Hurricane Ida, we had several people who were, once the cell phone came back alive and my phone exploded from a combination of Facebook messages, signal and text messages. Yeah, I mean, we had several people, not even just the people that like we camp with every year but like just random matter of facts listeners

who were like hey i'm like three hours away from you do you need any help hey i'm i'm we had some people that were over in slide l which is 25 miles away from us and they got hit almost as bad as we did but they were still reaching out be like hey i know you're closer to the eye wall than I was. Are you okay? So I think the interesting thing about doing this as a standalone event separate from Prepper Camp is that it's given us an opportunity to meet everyone face-to-face and build some relationships and some bonds but the other thing i i always enjoy is the fact that like once kyle's wife said out loud wow y'all are really normal which i took as like the greatest compliment on earth but it didn't get said by josh's wife while we were out there but i i could i could just tell she seemed like you know she was a little tiny bit apprehensive when she first showed up. And then by the time we were leaving, her guard was down.

She was just, okay, these are okay people. I mean, we're weird. Oh, we're weird as hell. But we're okay. this because it gives it gives me an opportunity to kind of like let our guard down and show other people who are really kind of being brought along by their spouses who are more in who are into preparedness like hey these aren't crazy weird people like the way i prepare is not that much different from the way they prepare like i think I think it's another opportunity to break down those stereotypes of what a prepper is or what preparedness is and show people this isn't

weird stuff. Like we're not living in bunkers eating MREs. We don't, that ain't the way this works. I mean, I got cheese danish. We're ready to if we need to, but. Well, you know, sidebar story, but like years ago I went to prepper camp and one of our, one of our friends, you know, sidebar story, but like, years ago, I went to prepper camp, and one of our friends, Wynn, he brought some bear that he had harvested. And we were eating ground bear and bear steak and all kinds of stuff all weekend. It's a bear. It's a

big animal. A lot of meat. And I came back to work, and I was telling people, like, yeah, I had bear steak for the first time. And they looked at me like, I thought you went to prepper camp. Like, wouldn't you be eating MREs and rice and beans and stuff like that? And I'm like, well, it's not the apocalypse yet. You don't have to practice for that. I mean, I've got the stuff. I know how to cook it, but it doesn't mean we have to live like that today. Like we can, we can enjoy life for a while and just be ready for things to go to hell.

But I think that this is an important part of like the outreach side of this podcast is to show people we're normal, you know? I don't know if I would use that term. I don't know if I would say we're normal. I think everyone's a little weird in their own way personally. Okay. I don't think we're normal i'm sorry i'm not i'm sorry anyway anyway so

never mind we're not normal now i'm gonna show her how weird i really am the summer camp is for patrons only um or invite um so yeah so if you're not a patron i'm sorry something kicked over my giggle box anyway the summer camp is for patrons only and if not i know i know joe. I don't even know it was funny. You good? Patrons only or special invite. And I'm assuming that my producer here has put the link to become a patron. I'm 99% sure.

Okay. If not, you can let us know. It's on the website, too. It's in the show notes notes it's in the show notes that's what i was saying i was thinking that it was in the show notes everything's in the show notes um so the information for the june trip next june trip the next one in michigan um will probably come out i would say around october maybe October. Support the show. Yeah. Merch and then Amazon and Patreon. So if you want to get in on that trip, you got to be a patron or you got to, you know, be a special friend.

Yeah. And special to put a pin on what special friend is. If we've met you in person, like you've come to Prepper camp with us before yeah we'll we'll largely grandfather an exclusive club well and i'll also have to do a shot to get in and i'll also say that cactus juice all the hosts from prepper broadcasting network they all have an open invitation oh yeah absolutely They haven't for various reasons. Yeah, James. Well, but James did say next year he would try to make it a point to go, although I don't know if he realized we're going to be in Michigan next year, so that might color his response.

Yeah. We'll see. But we'll see him all at Prepper Camp regardless. Yeah. One quick thing Kyle commented, he said Harrison ain't a prepper camp regardless yeah one quick thing um kyle commented he said harrison ain't a prepper harrison's his son harrison may not be a prepper kyle but harrison is going to save us all because he is so damn smart at what six seven so he he's gonna figure it out we're not even gonna need bunkers because harrison's going to create something to get us off this world and out of harm's way.

So we're going to keep Harrison around, even though he's not into stocking food and ammo and all that stuff yet at seven, six or seven. We're going to keep your astrophysicist around for quite some time. I will say, though, for those of you who have non-prepper spouses and children, that doesn't mean stop teaching them the lessons. Oh, absolutely. Because sooner or later, that's going to penetrate. That also doesn't mean that they're not invited to something like this. to penetrate. That also doesn't mean that they're not invited to something like this. It took three years for Beth to come and the rest of the family to come. It took how many years before you came to Prepper Camp? It took three or four years before I went to Prepper Camp. So, and then I feel like once you take a bite out of it, you're kind of like hooked.

To be fair, I mean, I was very, very deep into preparedness and doing this podcast for several years before you finally broke down and were like, okay, maybe you're not as crazy as a lot you were. So every time you went to prepper camp and you came home and you told us about everything that was going on, I would get like young girl jealous. Like, I cannot believe I missed this. I'm so jealous of you. Like mad jealous because I didn't go to prepper camp. Because she didn't go even though I invited her. I was invited. I know. Multiple times.

I know. I know. Won't make that mistake again. I didn't get to go last year, but that was not of my, I was still very upset last year because I didn't get to go. But anyway, so that's it. That was our trip. I am going to post pictures on our Instagram. I don't know how many people follow Instagram. I'm really, really bad about posting to Instagram. I am also really bad about not telling y'all when we're not going to have a show. So I do appreciate y'all constantly coming on and at least checking to see if we're

going to be on on Sundays or listening to the podcast on Rewind or however you want to call it. So whenever it comes out on Tuesdays. But I'm really bad about that. So I apologize again. But I will go post some pictures on our Instagram feed and let you see this waterfall and the people and the community that we have built. And the meteor. Oh, and the meteor.

That was a me, you, and Andrew and Piper thing on the last day. But I will. I'll post a picture of the meteor that we saw. It was pretty awesome. So, yeah. So, anything else? No, I think that's it. I mean, we talked about, me and Andrew talked about this very briefly on Matter of Facts podcast a week ago, I feel like.

Yeah, y'all did a really quick regroup. Yeah, but to be fair, that was the day after we got home. And me and him were still just like all the color drained out of our face, totally beat from the road. Like, it wasn't this animated, put it that way. Well, no, because I wasn't on there. Anyway. Well, I hope y'all have a great rest of your weekend. Thank y'all for tuning in today.

And I am pretty sure that we'll be here next Sunday. Yeah, I expect so. We should be. We should be. We don't have any more trips planned for a few weeks. No, but I will be here with a new tattoo next Sunday. Anyway, all right. So y'all have a great rest of your Sunday, rest of your weekend.

Have a good week, and we'll see y'all next week. Bye, everybody. Bye, y'all have a great rest of your Sunday, rest of your weekend. Have a good week, and we'll see y'all next week. Bye, everybody. Bye, y'all. Thank you.