WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Off the Trails: Vacation Inside Jokes

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Join Nicole Sighiartau and Storm Drexler as they discuss some of their wildest experiences in the great outdoors! This week they chat about some inside jokes that were developed on various outdoor excursions. 

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome to Off the Trails. Choo-choo! I'm Storm Drexler. And I'm Nicole Seguirtao, and we'll be your adventure buddies every week as we discuss some of our wildest stories from our outdoor endeavors. This week, we're talking about some funny inside jokes that were generated from trips. Yuck, yuck. What?

You know, yuck, yuck, that's how people used to laugh in like the 1950s, I think. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, I feel like trips generate wonderful inside jokes. I think so, too. But before that, we have trail markers. We do have trail markers. And my trail marker is a bit of a PSA.

Warning. Warning. Don't go running when it is negative two degrees outside. Oh, no, Nicole. What did you do? Sunday morning. Actually, Saturday night, let's back up. Saturday night, I check the weather.

other. And I see it is supposed to be clear skies Sunday morning. And we haven't had clear skies in the morning in weeks. Clear skies for the first time in several weeks here in Hillsdale County, Michigan. Exactly. And so I got really excited. And Andrew was doing Yotenheim. So he was gone. So I went to bed super early, like 10 p.m., which is crazy. And I woke up at 5 a.m. Oh, Lordy. And I did like two hours of stuff before I left from my run. Anyway, 7 a.m rolls around. It's still dark, but it's like it's blue hour. And stormed the sky.

I don't know if I've ever seen that. It was so blue and it was so cool. And I had like bundled up and I have this shirt that has a hood and like a balaclava thing that goes over your nose. Okay. I put this thing on. I put on a headband over that. I'm wearing my fleece line leggings, double layers, my gloves. And I get outside and I was like, it's not that bad.

Within two minutes of running, there was ice on my eyelashes. within two minutes just from my breath like condensation freezing and for some reason I was like I'm going to run four miles the first two miles that was a good impression of yourself

I know the first two miles I was on fire I was living it up it was the highlight of my semester so far like the greatest moment ever I was running I was listening to music the sky was rising the sun was rising

the sky was rising this sky was rising and there was a full moon setting and it was the most beautiful like synchronous moment of sun and moon so after two miles i'm like dang my hands are kind of cold were you wearing gloves of course if i was not wearing gloves i would be like frozen dead but even so but even so and i am exactly two miles away from campus which means i have to run two miles to get back so i was like i'm just going to finish my loop i took a couple more pictures of the moon going down more road because you have a beautiful view of it setting And at two and a half miles it hits me, I'm like, I'm really cold. And I cannot stop anymore because if I stop, I will walk. And if I walk, I will freeze. I am being a little dramatic here. But when people get hypothermia, which I'm not saying I had hypothermia, but when people get hypothermia, they all of a sudden feel drowsy and tired and warm. And I was starting to feel that way. Like I was running and I was like just getting tired. You're like, I could take a nap here. Not quite that much, but I was like, I could walk.

It's not that cold, but I'm in my brain. I was like, no, it is cold. It's negative two. You need to keep moving. And that last mile was the hardest mile of my life. Wow. I've ran a marathon, but that last mile, I was like, I can walk. And I was like, no, you can't.

No, you can't. You have to keep running. It was so, so cold. And when I got back, ice had frozen over my headband. It was crazy. And my eyelashes were so caked with ice. And like, I kept brushing it off my eyelashes, but it kept getting more caked with ice.

So basically, do not run more than two miles in negative two degrees. Because if I would have done two miles, I would have been perfectly fine. I wasn't feeling drowsy or anything by the end of those two miles. But the four miles did me in, and it really scared me, and I'm never doing that again. Whoa. So, but it was beautiful and it was wonderful. And yeah, so that's my trail marker. The most beautiful things often require the most dangerous missions.

I guess so. Yeah. What's your trail marker? My trail marker is I was walking across a. big field. It was like over towards the Simpson parking lot kind of when you like cut the diagonal. And there's kind of a weird like dip in there that I've forgotten about because of the snow. Oh. And the snow just like goes, it's like flat. It makes it all appear flat for some reason. I don't know how that works because you feel like the snow would fall evenly across the ground.

Yes. But no, it's just flat make the snow, but the ground is not. The ground is not flat. The snow is not representative of the ground a few feet beneath it. Yes. So all of a sudden, uh, Jones looks over and I'm like descending like an escalator. down into this out and we thought that was really funny and then we played it up and we were like but it did get to like up to like my like almost my waist at one point wow and storm is tall guys yeah if you don't know that was seven feet deep up just up to my waist he's not that tall it was crazy dude yeah that's fun that's my show worker not quite as uh life endangering or beautiful but we needed a lighthearted one because again mine was the synchronicity of the heavens

Yeah. Mine was the synchronicity of my pants are now wet. All right. Inside jokes. Inside jokes on trips we've been on. Yes. You have to go first. I have to go first.

Yeah. Okay. This is probably one of the oldest ones I can think of. I was seven years old and we were in Italy. And it was my mom, dad, uncle, grandma, grandpa. The whole squad pulling up. The whole squad. And it was the very first day of,

the trip and my dad is an early riser like he is up at 530 if not earlier oh it's my timer it's storm's timer to take a picture at six o'clock anyway so my dad is up probably at five or six in the morning on our very first day in italy which is fine because there's a lot of stuff we want to see and do and when you're a little kid it takes you like two seconds to get ready you put on clothes and you're ready to go. Like there's nothing to it. So I'm ready within two minutes of my dad waking me up probably. And I remember standing outside on our little balcony. He was like, Nicole, this trip is going to be a whole lot of hurting cats. And I was like, hurting cats? I was like, what do you mean hurting cats? And he's like, well, there's a lot of us. We're trying to all organize together to go leave at a certain

time to go do certain things and make the most of our trip. And we have a lot of people that we have to heard. So it's going to be like herding cats. And I thought it was the funniest thing ever. And I remember I told my mom like an hour later and she did not find it very funny. She just stared blankly at you. Herding cats is funny. I'm just imagining trying to do that.

It seems like an impossible endeavor. Yeah. But ever since that I used that phrase quite a bit on trips because I think it's hilarious. And most people don't find it funny because they're the ones being herded in this analogy. And I'm like, come on, guys. Come on, let's go. There are people in this life that are people that need to be herded and people that hurt. The shepherds.

And if you have a family of like a big family or if you've gone on a trip with a bunch of people, you know this to be true. Yeah. I'm a herder. I look around and there's people that are just looking around, don't know what's going on. They're cattle, dude. They need to be just siphoned into the next room of the museum or they need to be pointed in the direction of the trail or wherever we're going. Yep. And they'll do it.

And they're great. And they'll have a really, really good time. They just need to be told. Never in a million years will they figure out where they're supposed to go by themselves. No. And if on a lift left and attended, they will wander off. That's true. I've also heard hurting squirrels, which...

Oh, man. That's even worse. I know. It's, in my mind, it's less funny than cats. Because cats are kind of like, they're just meandering, you know? Yeah. They're laying there. Yeah, stretching out.

Anyway, so that's an inside joke that's carried on for many, many years. I have one that's every time we set out on a family. trip. If we all, if all of us get in the car together, we set out, this is also kind of an idiom, kind of like yours. The thing we always say is, we're off like a herd of turtles. Someone says that phrase every single time we depart to go anywhere. Like we're like, there's a hike and it's like, oh, like a herd of turtles.

That's really funny. No one laughs at it anymore. It's just like a part of the already engrained vocabulary now. Yeah. We're way back in the day we used to laugh at it. And now it's just like, yeah, make sure we say that on the way out. I remember when I got into sailing there was a boat on the lake and it was called thundering hurt and it had a picture of turtles on the back and I thought it was the funniest thing

and my dad was like Nicole if you ever get a boat you need to name it turtle stampede and I thought it was the funniest thing ever because I was like turtles you know they're slowly walking around not going very fast and when you're racing you want to go fast so I remember I told my best friend I was like, Sophia, if I get a boat, I'm going to name it Turtle Stampede. And she's like, what? Why would you want to name it that? Because then you're going to go slow. And I was like, no, but it's funny because I'm just going to beat everyone in my boat.

That's called Turtle Stampede. You got beaten by the Turtle Stampede. Exactly. Yeah. Lots of fun little saying. Yeah. My next one's longer, but you go, you go next. Okay.

You are listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.7 FM. All right. What's your next? Inside joke. Inside joke from my trip. Um, again, this is something from my dad. He likes to poke fun at people. What a legend of the game. Yeah, just what he does. And he often criticizes people when we're camping or hiking if they have really big backpacks or really huge tents and just like a lot of gear. And he'll make the comment. They have everything but the kitchen sink. So I can't, I can't pinpoint exactly when he first said that. However, I love this. I remember when I, I was eight years old or 10.

I was either eight or 10. We're hiking up Mount Whitney, and I see these two people coming down with more stuff on their backpacks than I've ever seen in my life. Now, they could have been doing the Pacific Crest Trail because you can exit the trail that way to get down to Lone Pine to refuel

and restock on supplies. But they had so much stuff like hanging off the side, lashed onto the top, lashed onto the back. And I'm thinking in my brain, I was like, man, everything but the kitchen sink. Everything with the kitchen sink. And as they're passing me on my left, in this girl's pocket, she has a little pouch called portable kitchen sink.

And I... They had the kitchen sink. They had the kitchen sink. They had everything and the kitchen sink. Wow. And what's even funnier is, so once we pass them, my dad is like, man, they had everything but the kitchen sink. And I was like, no, dad.

They had. They had the kitchen sink. He's like, what do you mean? And I told him, and we could not stop. Stop laughing. We're like, of all the useless things you need while you're hiking. A kitchen sink. A kitchen sink.

Sometimes I want to wash my hands. You can't just use a creek. Watch my vegetables. Oh, wet wipe. Yeah, I guess I could. Or the ground. Like some wet grass. No, some damp grass.

You know, that's a pretty good moist towelette. Wait, do you think that wet wipes would be considered portable kitchen sinks? Like, what was in her kit? I imagine this bag had some sort of like bowl. Like, you know those portable dog bowls? Oh, yeah. And maybe you could, like, pump in water from a creek. Because, like, water filters.

You pump it, and it filters it. So I'm imagining there was some sort of, like, pump system where you could put it in a lake and pump water through it. Holy crap, you're right. I've looked it up. It's like a, you can, like, fold it out into, like, a box that has, like, a little pump on it. Oh, I was right? It's, like, funnel a thing into any water source.

And it goes, we're into the box. You can either, like, drain it or have it fill up. because they have portable showers that's more of a thing if you're like car camping no one's no one's carrying that up a trail true unless you're like a germaphobe i need one of these enjoy i need a portable kitchen sink hey get yourself a portable kitchen sink i don't know about that incredibly useful purchase you use this all the time definitely um and one more little tidbit to add on to this. So in May of 2021, Mother's Day, I went up to Las Vegas with my mom, grandma, and grandpa to go visit my uncle. My dad was not coming on this trip because he had to work

and couldn't get time off. And before we left, I'm watching us all like load this stuff in the car. And we're at my grandparents house, so my dad's not there. And I'm looking at everything. And the car is like packed to the brim. There is so much stuff for a three day trip. And we're, we're going four hours away. We're not going far. Plus also my uncle lives there and has stuff. So I text my dad. We're forgetting something. He's like, oh, no, what? Like, did you leave it at home? And I was like, no, just the kitchen sink. And I told that to my mom. I told that joke to my mom. She's like, that's not funny. I could be going on a, your mom doesn't find anything funny. I could be going on a three year trip and I probably just pack a single little backpack.

A single backpack? I don't ever pack much more. Like, if it's a trip. Hey, if you don't. moving somewhere. I'm just going on a trip. I'm like, I'm a single little backpack. I'm fine. If you don't have it, you don't need it. That's what I'm saying. Yep. Make do. Except for like a passport. That's pretty important if you're going abroad.

If you don't have it. If you don't have it, you don't eat it. Just steal someone else's. Sneak in there. Well, my next one is a reference that me and a couple friends make pretty often, which is the waterfall incident. We'll talk about the waterfall incident. Shout out Liam Brennan, who knows about this one. We took a trip to Delonaga, Georgia.

You may have heard of like the Deloniga gold mines. Up in the southern Appalachian mountains that stretched down into northern Georgia, there's the town of Deloniga, which is famous for its gold deposits, I guess. And we're up there to spend a weekend out in the wilderness cabin like stuff, hanging out, hiking up some nearby spots. And there was one like trail that was like from this kind of base camp area that we were at. And at the beginning, like the very, very beginning of that trail, it, like, goes over a waterfall. Like, you have to, like, walk kind of through the creek to then, like, go through it.

But it's, like, all rock and, like, slick. And we're doing this trip kind of in winter. But winter and Georgia is not like. Is it like December or January? What are we talking about? Something like that. I don't really remember. I think, like, November, probably.

Okay. And it's like a little bit slicked over. There's, like, some ice. Okay. But that's it. There's no snow. We're in Georgia. Yeah.

And so the whole group are with, we're living with like a group from a class. And the one like guy that's there with us is like, this is like early high school. The one guy that's there with us, like the one adult who's there with us is like, do any of the hikes. But don't do that one because I don't want to be liable for a kid falling off the waterfall because he slipped. And so we're like, let's do that one. We have to do that. So we go do that one. And everyone goes over there to that one, the whole group, Liam and I included.

And sure enough, some chick, I don't remember, we. which kind of was, slips and falls. Oh, my gosh. Oh, nice. It, like, falls. And I don't remember who it was, but we get called back. Like, he comes over and he's like, why did you guys do this? And we sit around the fire and we're like a bunch of, like, 16-year-olds.

He were like, ah, why? And he's like, why did you do this? You have defamed our trip. And Liam fled before we could get caught. So we're all sitting around. He ran away. He ran away. So our other friend Tad, friend of the show.

Oh, Tats. The two of them got away before the scolding could happen. So the rest of the first of us are getting, you know, just chewed out. Yeah. And Liam and Tatter. We look, we can see them in like the, like the mess hall, like the little, like, whatever. That's funny. But like the little, like, food area where there's a bunch of picnic tables and they're just over there, like, eating graham crackers.

Oh, my gosh. So now they're like, waterfall incident. And they claim, if you ask them their side of the story, they would claim that they weren't there at all for it. But it was their idea pretty much to go on that hike, opposed to the, opposed to the, others. That's hilarious. You know, I can picture Liam with a graham cracker just like hiding away. So now they will use the waterfall. They will just cite the waterfall incident to show that they are responsible. I see. Yeah, that is the inside joke. I see. That's funny. Now, quick question about this waterfall. I don't know if you mentioned this at the start,

but is it like there's a waterfall and then there's a pond that you're walking around? Yeah, but it's kind of like, you're kind of like 20 feet up from that pond or like 25 five feet up. Like it's like you have to like you climb kind of up and walk across it to it. Because I was wondering it's like is there a waterfall pond and then more waterfall where if you slip you could continue going down the waterfall. Oh wow. Oh so that's kind of that's kind of serious. Yeah it was kind of like maybe not great. Maybe not great. Nobody went over the waterfall but this girl did slip and like get wet and like fall into the water. Yeah. I was not that bad. It was not that dangerous at all. Okay. But the waterfall incident. But yeah I'm very I'm irresponsible because of the waterfall

right right storm is very irresponsible that's the takeaway from this episode okay from loki most episodes from life from life in general storm may be older but that doesn't mean he's wiser i may be 73 years old but i only have 10 years of experience oh my gosh okay i have another really funny one this is generated from a recent trip this was from the summer when um my dad and i went to the mountains with Andrew. So we're driving in the White Mountains off-roading, and it's kind of like a one-way road. It's wide enough where if you pull off to the side, another car can pass, right? But there's a fork in the road leading up to the White Mountain Trailhead and then off to the right to the bristlecone pine forest. And we're approaching this fork in the road, and we see two

cars stopped right next to each other towards the fork going to the left, towards the White Mountain, which is where we want to go. Now, this fork is kind of a little triangle. Like, there's a little island in the middle, and there's a spot in the road where you can park off to the side and won't be in anyone's way, basically. Like, you can drive around if there's a car parked over there. But these two people are parked right next to each other, completely blocking the road. And as we're approaching, we're like, oh, surely one of them will move.

Like, we assumed one had gotten a flat tire and couldn't move, and the other one was helping them, and they just happened to park there. Yeah, that makes sense. So we're approaching. No one's moving. These people are standing out of their car staring at us. Staring at you? Like literally staring at us, not saying a word.

Get off the road. My dad rolls down the window and he's like, hey, are you guys good? What's going on here? And they start sprinting towards you on all fours? No. And they're like, I don't remember what they said. We're like, you know, just fixing something. And so my dad pauses, expecting them to be like,

we'll move because obviously you're trying to get through. Like it's very clear we want to go in that direction. Yeah. They do nothing. They go back to what they're doing. And my dad was like, hey, could one of you move, please? And one of the guys was like, oh, oh, yeah. So he moves his car.

And there's now kind of room, but he had a very small car and our car's pretty big. So technically there's not really room for our car still because the other car, this Subaru has its door open. My dad and I hate on Subaru's because they are not good outdoor adventure vehicles, whatever Subaru might say. Anyway, and a girl is standing by the trunk doing something. And Andrew's driving right now. And Andrew is a very sweet guy.

He's not one to be pushy. But my dad, my dad can be a bit pushy. And so my dad rolls down the window and he goes, how do you like your door? and the girl looks at us and she's like, how do I like my door? What do you mean? How do I like my door? My dad was like, how much do you like it?

Because we need to get through. And so finally she understands and closes the door. But after that, there were several, there were, yeah. How do you like that door? There are several other times on the trip. How do you like that door? There were several other times the trip

where we would have the door open and one of us would just make the response. How do you like that door? How do you like that door? I'm taking it. And I think we referenced it again when we went on our fall break trip. So that's a pretty good inside joke. It's kind of intimidating.

My dad can be very intimidating. Yeah. Next time I'm going to look at somebody's like dinner. They're eating dinner. I'm like, how do you like the dinner? And I'm just going to steal it. Eat their food. How important is it to you?

Yeah. I like that. So, ha-ha, inside jokes. Nicole just make the weirdest face. Look to me. Are you incapable of humor? Yes, basically. This has been inside jokes with the Gulsingartown.

That's not the name of the podcast. Anyway, thank you for listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. We hope you have a great week and make time to go outside and enjoy the great outdoors. We'll see you out there. Happy trails. How do you like this podcast? Bye, guys.