This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Richie Wolfe

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Today we're joined by Richie Wolfe, local filmmaker and writer who did a bicycle tour of the US.  He was also Mike's boss doing student media at JCCC.  He recently wrote a book on his travels. Richie's book is called "Home Is Where the Heart Lands: How Pedaling for 5 Months Brought Me Closer to Home."  You can find it at Richie's website: https://www.wolfesdenwriting.com/

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Can't you see there's so much more laughs and tales you can't ignore A journey that will leave you floor In the night or in the day Just press play we're on our way Hi, buddy. Welcome to the podcast, and I'm pleased to have Richie Wolfe joining us on the podcast today. Richie, how's it going? Hey, good. Good to see you, Mike.

Good to see it too. So for the context of our listeners, we worked together at Johnson County Community College. In fact, you were my boss. Yeah, they're there for a year. Yeah. I was doing media. Wild to look back on. We made it. We're still doing media.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. In fact, yeah, you were there when I started my first podcast with Sunflare Brew. I recall that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was my first.

this podcast we're doing right now is my third and yeah fun fun times and on the subject of me I just did a couple days at playing Comic Con one of those days to do a video oh wait for your podcast or

no no I'm going to do a wrap-up on the podcast for playing Comic-Con but at Planet Comic-Con I got to do a little video work that's a lot fun I love fun doing that did you interview people out there that wasn't my intention

but they just said yeah we you do a video just go out so I get as much as possible just people interacting with everything yeah it's it's a

it was definitely not the same caliber of a material that salmon bill did yeah yeah and i've i've had both those guys on this podcast too so oh no way that's yeah yeah sam was an interesting one and uh bill bill actually caught at uh salsam con which was another local uh convention uh he's doing anime voice work now yeah yeah he's doing really well

Mm-hmm. It's done really well for himself. And then Justin Pemberton's the other Jaycaf person I've had on. And we, he's a sports guy, so we talked to sports for a good time. That's great. I'm glad you're getting everybody back together. I know, right? I was stoked to hear that you had a podcast and be glad you reached out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So one of the reasons we're here today, is a book coming out or I should say it's already out so I will listen on the on the Spotify but it's yeah go and tell us a bunch of book sure so I just released a book and it's called Home is where the heart lands how peddling for how peddling for five

months brought me closer to home and so it's a it's a memoir and it's a about my journey bicycling around the perimeter of the United States in 2017. So I went through 30 states and parts of Canada and just kind of circled the whole country by bicycle. Just sort of a, how I saw it back then was like, well, this is my five-year plan. And I accomplished it and just left work and just went on my body. like for five months. I mean, I knew I was going to be out there as long as I needed to be, but I gave myself six months and did it faster than I thought. But yeah, the book is just my,

it's me looking back at the journey, looking back at my journals, and kind of taking how I've grown as a person and my thoughts and perspectives that I've grown into. since that bike ride and also because of that bike ride and kind of bringing all the things I learned and all the people that I met on the journey and bringing it all together kind of like like this this trip deeply moved me and changed me and it's it's also just like very difficult things so it's I I like to think it's the book gets more funny than heartwarming just because riding a bicycle for 12 hours a day for five months is very uncomfortable i could i could believe that yeah so um so tell me about some of the places

you have visited on your bike trip yeah so i went to 30 states and uh you know some of the notable some of the notable places i went to were either like national parks or my favorite city that I visited was Montreal, Canada. Nice. Montreal, Quebec. I'd never been there and didn't really know much about it except for that. It was a French Canadian. And I was really surprised by that city just because it was very, very European. I wasn't expecting that. But as I learned more about the history of Montreal and they were actually celebrating their 350th year while I was there. And I was

like, oh, wow. So there's a lot of history here. It was kind of, I just enjoyed that city as a metropolitan area. They had a lot of bike infrastructure, a lot of good coffee, a lot of good parks. And it just kind of felt different than every other city. But yeah, and I got to spend my birthday weekend in Montreal. So I think that was special too. But I mean, I went through New York City. I went through Philadelphia. I went through Hartford, Connecticut. I went through Washington, D.C., Baltimore. I went through Atlanta, not straight through the city. Thankfully, I was on the outskirts.

Correct. But went through Phoenix. I started, basically started in San Diego, went across, went up, went back across, and went down, and ended in San Francisco. So I got to see a lot of major cities, which, I was very stoked about, but got to just kind of like discover, yeah, natural areas in the United States that I'd never seen before. Like I went through Glacier National Park, and that was one of the most beautiful, I think it's one of the most beautiful national parks in America. Honestly, just all of the mountains and the snow and the glaciers and the lakes, like it's, it just looks pristine.

And when you look at it, you want to, like, write a song about it. Just, like, stunningly beautiful. But down in the Texas desert, so I went, I rode Texas from east to west all the way across El Paso to Houston. And, you know, I didn't know where I was going. I was just kind of hitting random towns that happened to have a campground on the way. But out in the panhandle of Texas, New Mexico, there's the Carlsbad Caverns, which is just like a natural underground cavern. It's, I'd never been, but I also didn't realize I was like going through it.

I kind of accidentally passed it. And that, you know, I didn't go into the caverns. I kind of passed them because they're so far off the road. But near Carlsbad is another place called Guadalupe Mountain. And Guadalupe is, that's a national park. And it's an 8,000, I believe it's 8,000 foot mountain just in the middle of the Texas desert. It was the most ran, like I had no clue. I'd be climbing elevation and like going up into the mountains out there in the desert.

But that was a, it was a fun surprise. I was really happy to have found a place like that and got a camp right next to the mountain in the national park in the middle of the desert because I had been I had like 120 miles of nothing before that so it was kind of a pleasant surprise but yeah there's several places like that that I just felt were really beautiful and that's kind of what was fun about being on bike you just kind of like like oh wow I never would have seen this if I didn't take this random road or if I wasn't at the ground level because that's versus like compared to being in a car, you know, you see so much more on a bike or by foot.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. That's one of the reason I like Amtrak so much is you get to see a lot of really cool scenery, especially going across Missouri on the Missouri River Runner from Kansas City to St. Louis. So that's a very nice routes. And then from St. Louis to Houston, yeah, you get to see some pretty cool stuff. And then they kick you off the train in Longview, Texas.

Yeah, take a bus all the way down. And stops in a little town going Mechadoches, Texas. Right next to a, I forget what the place was, but it's a little restaurant there. And just down the street from, from CFAF Austin State University and then drives you off at the Amtrak Station in downtown Houston. And yeah, good luck navigating Houston unless it's huge. It is, it's a gigantic guy.

I spent a week down there just before my grandmother passed. This was before I went back to school and we worked together. but I was there for a week before my grandmother passed. She lived in spring, which is a northern suburb of Houston, still within Harris County. By the way, that county is huge. Took two hours to get from her house to downtown Houston, then tack on another two to get at to NASA. Was that taking a bus? No, that's, no, I rent a car.

Oh, my God. that's crazy is is your family all from texas my mother's my mother was uh um itself uh also i've riled is in baton rouge uh on that side my dad's side's from uh pittsburgh okay east coast yeah you got the you got the east coast accent you have a little bit of a that's what people keep telling me in fact someone told me that's just the other day at comic on I noticed from there, I was doing the board game check-in and checkouts for people to play board games. And part of the process was we had to take everyone's IDs. And one had a Pennsylvania ID.

And I've never heard this town. Yeah, just out there at Pittsburgh. Oh, yeah, my dad's from Pittsburgh's. Wow. That's cool. I'm actually, I'm going to Pittsburgh at the end of April. that's my bike ride this year there's a trail that goes

from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., called the Great Allegheny Passage. The Great Allegheny Passage, Perth? Allegheny, yeah, there you go. Yeah, I'd never heard of it until one of my co-workers told me about it, so we're going to go take seven days on the trail. Cool, cool.

Here in about a month. Cool, so yeah, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania is where you'll find Pittsburgh. The Allegheny is one of the three rivers. Okay. This always bugs the heck out of me, because we all know the two rivers, the Alleghen,

the Mungahela, one, the Ohio. And it's easy to tell which one's the Ohio, because there's a place in Pittsburgh called the point, that points in the direction of the Ohio, where the two rivers mean. I never could for a living me figure, which one's the Allegheny, which one's the Monongahe.

I think it's the northern one is the Allegheny and the southern one's the Monongahila it's so hard to say tongue twisters with all those old I'm assuming it's like native

titles right? Trived Yeah those are like native for yeah words of the Native American origin and I think certainly Mananga Gila I think would be I think and we're living in a part of the country we have alaitha yeah we have black bob yeah we have uh yeah

lenoxa shawnee uh dunganaxia osolonomy that's our that's our deal yeah what are what other what other amtrak have you taken i i love taking trains myself yeah i never knew that you you had gone that way before yeah yeah so uh the so the so the missouri river runner that's the train that goes across Missouri from Union Station and can't stay in it they'll make steps in Independence

Lee Summit I think Warrensburg it's been a while since I've written it it will stop in Jefferson City and continue on the town of Washington is a town of Washington yeah

and it will stop in St. Louis at their new multi-modal so I can get off there I could take a bus or I could take the MetroLink

and then the other routes I forget what it's called but it's overnight going from St. Louis across Arkansas and then the morning is when it hits a Longview

and it's in Longview you get on the bus all the way to Houston and then back yeah okay so those those are the only two routes you've taken then those are only two hand truck routes i've taken that um flying yeah that's i believe you may have heard that story

about my last time flying oh yeah minneapolis it is i it's my least my least favorite type of travel is yeah well a because it's so expensive anymore and uh be uh it can be As my Minneapolis story point, as clearly shows, it can be just convoluted and everything. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I've been on, yeah, I've taken some of the cross-country trains because I, in 2014, I rode my bike from San Francisco to San Diego. And how I got home was on the Southwest chief. And so that was my first cross-country. It's like a 30-4 hours or something.

Sounds right, right, right. We should do a better job, but the way Antrack is set up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's not going to. But like I said, it is a very picturesque. You get nice views and everything. But then the, I can't remember what this one's called, but there's one that goes from, it goes from Oakland to Omaha, all the way to Chicago.

trains go to Chicago. Yeah, it seems like Chicago is a big up. Yeah, but I, so when I finished my ride in 2017, I took the Oakland to Omaha. And that one is great because it goes through Utah. It goes through, yeah, so it like goes through the near Mount Shasta in California. It goes near there. Then it goes through Utah. And just Utah is beautiful. And then it goes over Winter Park over the past through Colorado and then through Denver. So I feel like that one is gorgeous and like completely worth a trip. Then two was it two years ago now or two Septembers ago to I wanted to revisit my northern route from my bike ride because there's an Amtrak that goes all the way across US2 basically.

So I flew to Minneapolis, hopped on the train at 11 at night, and then went all the way across to Seattle. And that one's called the Empire Builder. And that one's cool. Like once you get through North Dakota, it's cool. Because you go over glacier, and then all of eastern Washington is just like gorgeous. It's completely through the woods and next to rivers and in the mountains. and then you go all the coast and then you cut south to Seattle.

So you actually get to run along the ocean for about an hour, which I wasn't expecting. So the Empire Builder is a fantastic train if you're ever looking for just like a little vacation. And then you can take the train down on the coast too. Right. Good deal. Good deal, yeah.

That sounds like your time. And yeah, once again, I prefer ant track to flying. Yeah. I don't. Hopefully it doesn't get cuts, but we'll see. Driving is always acceptable. Although, and, yeah, it can be a pain in the bud, too.

It's a four-hour drive, Kansas City, St. Louis, and all that. But that is on my to-do list, eventually with the podcast, to tour the country myself and you should I absolutely should because I'll put it this way the furthest west I've ever been San Antonio

yeah for this north Minneapolis for this east I've been to D.C. and the Hampton Roads at Norfolk Virginia Beach there you go yeah

well did you Did you happen to hit Norfolk during your trip or? I don't think I did, no. I was a little, I might have been a little more inland. I can't think, I can't really think of where Norfolk is geographically, but I don't believe I went through it. So Norfolk is basically like right on the, right on the coast of the Atlantic, right on, right there. pretty much as Chesapeake Bay opens into the Atlantic it's principally known

and the reason I was there in the first place was on a ROTC trip in high school as a Navy ROTC and we went there and toured all the naval bases and everything and so Norfolk Virginia Beach the community is collective It was called Hampton Roots.

And it's not too far from the North Carolina border. Yeah, I can't remember what city I came in through, but I remember I was cutting very inland to get to D.C. I'm trying to think, where was I? Yeah, because I stayed in, I stayed in Richmond, Virginia. So that's kind of the route I came in from, I was basically coming in from like Raleigh Durham and then over to Richmond, then to D.C. So I probably wasn't too close to Norfolk. Yeah.

That's so pretty cool. Yeah. That was a good thing. Shet's notes, Rale-Durham should be on my list. It's a good spot. Yeah, that's Duke University. Uh-huh. I'm good, yeah, Duke, North Carolina, and North Carolina State all within that metropolitan area.

Yeah, the, what's the, what's the third, isn't there like a third town? It's Raleigh Durham, but then there's like another. Chapel Hill is the other one. Temple Hill, yeah. That's the University of North Carolina, yeah. Yeah, but it never gets like, unless you live there, you don't really be like here, Chapel Hill. Right. Right.

I like it. Good deal. What overall, what overarching a lesson should people take away from your book other than hearing about all the cool places you've been to? Yeah, I think if you were to get something from my book, like I hope that it's, it's inspiration to go travel or inspiration to just like do something that feels like. uncomfortable or like kind of get over get over the hump of what of the thing something you might be afraid of and just like doing it because it's like with with travel you know just I like to

travel to just go show up in the place and like figure it out I don't like to like plan it too much because I want to kind of experience places from the ground level but yeah I'd hope that people would see how I did my ride and just believe in themselves that like, hey, I can go travel, I can, I can get on a plane or I can get on a train or I can get on a bike and take a weekend somewhere and have a really good time, like just for the sake of seeing a new place, you know, without like overthinking it and trying to like experience a place for what it is. But, yeah, I'd hope that people would want to believe that they can do something that maybe they're afraid to do or believe that they can, like, overcome hard circumstances. And I know being on a bike is, being a bike in the desert is a little bit different than other, other hardships we may feel in life.

But yeah, I'm hoping that maybe that is something that people will see it. Like, oh, if this guy can put up with this, it's like maybe I can too. But I won't do anything as hard to myself. Good deal. Good deal. And we are closer at time for this recording. But I guess those are good last words to go by. and yeah sure yeah um check out the check out the book uh it's called homas where the heart lands

it's available on audible and hoopla and liby and spotify then the the physical book in all i have it's digitally too on amazon so it's wolf's denriding.com and that's w-o-l-f-e-sdenwriting.com and it has all the links to whether you want to print book, an e-book, or audio book. Good deal. Thanks for having me, Mike. Thanks for coming, Richie, and to our audience and we'll talk to you next time. Totally. Have a good one.

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