Ep. 1162: The Adventurous Attitude with Mel Peddle

You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast. We talk with adventurers from around

the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the

outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there. Now here's your host, Kurt Linville.

Hi friends, Adventure is an attitude. This episode has a lot to do with that, but I want

to tell you about my adventure. I just got in it's dark outside and I had a little afternoon

adventure. I'm going to just share a couple of highlights to illustrate the point that

adventure is an attitude. Adventure comes in all shapes and sizes from the tiniest little

thing that takes someone to a new experience all the way to the massive adventures like

walking around the world or running ultra marathons, climbing the seven summits. There's

no limit to how big adventure can be, but adventure can also be small. My adventure

today I think was probably a smallish medium sized. As you know, I'm headed to Kilimanjaro

very soon to try to climb the tallest peak in Africa, which by the way, a couple of

fun facts, it is the third most prominent peak on earth. Prominence is measured from

base to summit, right? It is the biggest lone peak, meaning a peak that's not in a mountain

range, and it is the highest peak in Africa. So that's Kilimanjaro. I am super duper excited.

Of course, to be heading that direction, it's been a more than 30 year dream of mine to

summit Kilimanjaro. I've never been above the highest peak in Colorado, which is Mount

Elberd at 14 for some odd. I don't remember the exact measurement, but to be able to go

to 15, 16, 17 all the way up to 19, three plus, I am really excited to see what that feels

like. Anyway, I've been trying to train for this trip, but you should probably have a little

bit of a backstory. Two years ago, I skinned up a 12,000-some odd foot peak early spring. This

snow was really off camera. My ski boots were too small, and after that trip, my foot really

hurt. And then I went backpacking, and it hurt worse. And then I climbed another small mountain

one night, and the next day I couldn't walk on it. I realized I probably had a stress fracture.

But the weird thing is it didn't heal correctly, so it has been two years of trying to get my

foot right. And when this Kilimanjaro opportunity came up, the adventure of a lifetime for me,

I realized I've really got to get serious about getting my foot right so that I have a chance

at summiting Kilimanjaro. So I started going to physical therapy, and Dave, my physical

therapist, has been working with me for over three months to try to get my foot strong enough

that I can climb. So I have only been hiking and climbing again for about the last three weeks.

And so I'm going from being on the bench to a large degree to trying to summit Kilimanjaro. And

I have to admit that's a little bit nerve-wracking. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to be recording

audio and some video while I'm up there. We'll make some episodes out of it so you can get some

of the play-by-play about what it's really like to try to climb the tallest peak in Africa, 19,300,

and I don't know, 38 or something. So today, I said, well, I'm going to try to summit a peak that's a,

I don't know, it's 12 for something like that. And it's wintertime in Colorado. Of course,

it is January the 4th today. And I went solo when I got to the peak that I'd been looking at for

a while. There wasn't as much snow as we would like. Colorado's been a little bit dry this year,

but I was still in incredibly steep slopes. And I wasn't worried about avalanches this time. It was

just much, much steeper than I anticipated. So I had given myself four hours to summit this mountain

and get back down again. Four hours until dark, essentially. The first challenge was I was climbing

from a highway. And there were road cuts that were like 60, 80 feet tall, you know, just cliffs.

I couldn't get up. So I finally found a little coolar, a little galley that kind of went between

two road cliffs. And it was so steep. As I started climbing up it, I ended up with a short

glissade right back down again. I just couldn't get up it. And so I pulled out some trekking poles

that I could, you know, get some purchase into some dirt under the snow. And I managed to get up

the steep part between these two road cuts. And then I thought, okay, it'll be okay. I'm in a

galley. I just had to get out of this galley and it won't be steep anymore. No, I was wrong.

It was extraordinarily steep. I think this is the steepest, continuous winter climb that I've

attempted. And it was kind of real mountaineering. I mean, this is not just a hike up a trail. There

was no trail. It's winter time. I don't even know if a trail exists on this peak. So I'm going

through a lot of dead fall climbing over logs. The snow at times is over my gators. And at other

times is that my ankles, it's just very variable, but very, very slippery, so steep. And so I just

kept on chugging up the mountain one step at a time, one step at a time, one step at a time. And I

was surprised. It just never got less steep. I finally got up on a shoulder and I said, okay,

now it'll start to be doable, right? Because I got up on the shoulder from all of the steep

terrain. And then the shoulder got steeper and just went straight up again. After two hours of

extraordinarily strenuous climbing, slipping and sliding and climbing and climbing for every inch,

I was out of time. Where do the wise set your turnaround time and stick to it? I was almost to

the point where I would have broken out of the trees and it would have gotten less steep. There

is a long shoulder and then the summit. So I ran out of time and I thought, you know what,

I have hiked out of these places in the dark. I've done it several times. I don't need that kind

of an experience tripping over these dead fall logs everywhere, no trail to walk on. So I obeyed

the first roll of mountaineering when I got to my turnaround time. I turned around. So after two

solid hours, which I thought would give me to the summit, but no way on this mountain.

After two solid hours of climbing, I was back at the car in 45 minutes. I know that sounds

crazy, but as I was going down, I was skiing on my hiking boots. I mean, it was just slip

sliding away all the way down this mountain. So every step covered like three steps of the hike

up. And so it was quick. I got back down to the truck. I came home and now I'm producing a

podcast. But I shared that because that was a medium-sized adventure, a solo winter mountaineering

attempt. Not a big mountain, but it ended up being a bigger bike than I could chew today,

at least that I could chew and get home in the daylight. And here's the good news. My foot injury

while it hurt a little bit, I never had to limp. It got a little sore, but I never got to the

point of, oh no, I'm in trouble. So maybe Kilimanjaro is doable. We'll see. So that was today's

adventure. It's a lifestyle and it's an attitude. Today's guest is male pedal. And we talk a lot

about the idea of just kind of living more adventurously, taking the time to experience things that,

you know, you could have easily just passed right on by, but taking the time to do the thing. And

it may not always even be athletics. Sometimes it's just a new experience. I'm certain that you're

going to enjoy this one with Mill. And oh, also the group of guys who are climbing Kilimanjaro

are all doing it as a fundraiser to try to build awareness and financial support for the

nonprofit. We see hope. We see hope takes care of impoverished and homeless children in Africa.

They've already changed 850,000 lives. And we want to see this get bigger and bigger and bigger

and make a real solid difference in the world. So we're raising a dollar of foot. You've heard

this before. A dollar of foot. We're rounding up. So it's $20,000 per climber. They're 15 of us.

That would be $300,000. As of today, we're at about half that amount almost. We have raised $142,000

out of the $300,000 goal. And the fundraising doesn't stop just because we go and attempt the mountain.

The fundraising is a commitment that we've all made to make a difference for we see hope and to make

a difference in the world. So we're still going for that. The Adventure Sports Podcast fundraiser.

We have raised. Please hold, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. $3,600 and $1.00. And I'm really happy

about that. Thank you very, very much for your generous support. We're still about $16,399 shy of

the goal, but hey, I think we're going to get there sometime, someplace somehow. The dream lives

on $20,000 from the Adventure Sports Podcast. And for me, for we see hope, we can do this.

More information in the show notes if you're interested in being a part of this effort. And now on

with the episode. This is going to be a really fun episode for me. And I think that you'll like it

too. And I'm going to introduce this episode by reminding you of a prior episode, actually a

couple of them back at the end of June, almost July. I did a solo episode, which I called the

Value of Family Adventure. It was 1085. And in that, I talked about lots of different types of

adventures that people can do and families can do that are closer to home and simpler and ways

to introduce yourself to new sports. There was another one that I did way earlier that was

parallel to that. And that one was called Adventures You Can Do. And that one's from like six

years ago. And I don't know the episode number. But here's the reason I wanted to mention that.

Our guest today is Mel Petal. And Mel is a dear friend, her husband is a friend of my wife and I.

And they're wonderful people. And when Mel heard the episode, the Value of Family Adventure,

she told me to put my money where my mouth is. And so we ended up doing an adventure that was

actually listed in that episode. But more importantly, Mel and her husband, David, who goes by Muffin,

she can explain that one. Mel and Muffin have a lifestyle that's full of what I would call

many adventures, doable adventures, adventures that are approachable. And they have their eyes open

and looking for things and opportunities. And they have had some crazy, crazy experiences. So this

is going to be a smorgasbord of adventure talk with Mel. Mel, welcome to the Adventure Sports

podcast. Thank you. Happy to be here. I kind of laughed, Mel, because I know you well. And if

everybody knew you the way I knew you, they'd be laughing too, because you're just such a fun person.

And here's an example. I bumped into Mel a couple three years ago. And I said, wow, what are you

up to, Mel? And she said, pickleball? What do you mean pickleball? She goes, I'm really,

I'm really focused on pickleball right now. But here's the thing. Mel and Muffin started a

pickleball night. And the next thing you know, there are dozen, maybe 15 people showing up,

maybe 20 people showing up every week to play pickleball. And it became a big deal that's

lasted for years. So when Mel says that she is focused on something, then it often turns into

a whole lot more. Here's another one. Mel, this is how I got to know you, I think, especially

well, Mel and Muffin started a mountain biking evening right after work. I believe it was on

Wednesdays. Anybody who wanted to come, we would meet up and just go on a mountain bike ride.

And I met dozens of people by mountain biking with Mel and Muffin. And I love the way that they are

so inclusive in the things that they do. And anyway, so Mel, I'm going to start asking you questions.

I think you actually have a lot that you can teach us about how to live that kind of a life.

First of all, tell people who you are, where you are, and how you ended up here.

Uh, my name is Mel Petal. I live in Gunnison, Colorado. It's very nice here, but don't tell anyone

else about it. Uh, secret. It's a secret. And I ended up here. My husband and I took, we were

living in North Carolina at the time and we took, I think, seven vacations in a row to visit friends

on Crestibute. At some point, we thought we should just move to Crestibute. And we did,

Crestibute wasn't for us, but Gunnison's much more our scene, which is just down the road from

Crestibute. So that was pretty lucky that we landed in Gunnison, like we did. You know, I should

probably kind of explain just a touch of what that means. Crestibute is wonderful. It's one of the

most beautiful mountain towns in all of Colorado. It's, it's much more beautiful than a lot of

the well-known mountain towns. They just have better view sheds in all direction. They have a world

class super techie ski resort and they have all the things that go along with being a resort town,

including all the tourists and all of the expense and all of the, the fun things. And Gunnison is

more of a ranching community that goes back 150 years or more and it has a year-round community

and it's, it's, uh, it's the town down the valley from the resort town is the way I think of it.

And Gunnison is amazing in its own right and I'll let Mel tell you more about that, but that's

kind of the contrast. As at Crestibute is wonderful, I think we all love it, but Gunnison feels like

home to me. Yeah, it's much more of a functional town. It has a hospital, it has grocery stores,

it has the airport, um, university, and the university, yeah. And Crestibute has, you know,

grocery store that's pretty expensive and I'm not sure what other functional things it has there.

That's several bars. Not a restaurant, some bars. Um, so yeah. It has good Nordic skiing in addition

to Alpine skiing and world class mountain biking on both ends of the valley. For sure.

On both ends of the valley, it just doesn't matter. It's, it's, it's amazing, but that's,

that's not why we gathered here today to discuss Mill. So should we just lead out with a white

water snorkeling adventure? Yeah, that was great. So I was listening to the Ventures Forge podcast

and Kurt, you mentioned white water snorkeling in a stream in Oklahoma, uh, rather snorkeling in

a stream in Oklahoma at some point in your past. And I thought that'd be kind of fun. I

haven't really snorkeled on a stream before. I'd really enjoy snorkeling. And so I was over at

your house and I told you that I had my wet suit ready and when were we going to go snorkeling

in the river and you didn't have your wet suit. So I sent you my link on Amazon for the wet suit.

I had just gotten and then you got your wet suit and, and we went. It's just that the river here is

a little bit probably more intense than Oklahoma. I don't know much of the river mist streams.

And so it was really low. So I felt comfortable going because there wasn't as much water to mess

you up. So yeah, we just, it wasn't even, it was just Thursday or something. It was just a random

day. It wasn't a big event or anything. Yeah. So we just met up and at my house and did a very

cute walk to the river for my house. The wet suit. Yeah. We were wearing wet suits and tennis shoes

and gloves and snorkels. And I had a bicycle helmet on because I didn't have a white water helmet

and you had no helmet on, which I don't know about that. And then we walked to the river and

got in and off we went. It was pretty intense going face. I was in superman position going

headfirst down the river and there's a lot of your hind brain that does not want you to do that.

So that was a very difficult for me to get over in the first, I don't know, 10 minutes or so.

Well, I had snorkeled in lakes and ponds and streams and creeks and rivers and various places

including Florida. And once one of my favorite smell that was very similar was in Florida when we

went scuba diving down a clear river. And before we got in the water, we saw alligators, we saw

all sorts of fish, you know, gar and things like that. And then we got in the water and scuba dive

down this river for several miles with the alligators. And it was one of the one of the most amazing

experiences because you get the illusion of flight. I think with scuba diving, you get the feeling

of weightlessness. But then when you add a moving current like a river, it causes you to soar.

And you're soaring over the bottom, right? And so we did the gunnison river and since it was running

kind of low, we didn't have a lot of water. So it wasn't as much soaring and I was surprised

the visibility was good, but not great. We could see what, six, eight feet maybe. Yeah, maybe

something like that. But I'm most people they hear of white water snorkeling and they probably think

that's not a thing. And I guess it's not, but we did it. There are class three drops on the river.

And I'm just going to share this one and then I want to hear your impressions as well. But I'm

going down the river and I'm looking for fish and the rocks are just, you get the illusion of going

way faster than you are. So the rocks are flying by, right? And you're soaring over them and I think

I wonder where Mel is. So I raise up my head just in time to see you wash over a class three drop

that I don't think you knew was there. And you have a black wetsuit. So I mean, to me,

this is hilarious because I was there. But you have to use your imaginations a little bit if you

weren't there. So you look up and if you've ever seen a seal slide across the ice and then drop

into a hole in the ice, if you've seen that video of the seal just kind of splushing into the water,

that's exactly what it looked like. And so Mel just all of a sudden banished in this class three hole.

And then she popped up a little bit later with a surprise look on her face. So anyway, Mel,

that's one of my memories that I thought was really hilarious. I just really enjoyed that.

It was pretty interesting. As we were going, I felt like I was getting better at snorkeling

because I could do a little skull with my hands to pop my ears up above the water.

And with my ears above the water, I could hear for upcoming rapids instead of always having to

pop my head all the way up and look up because that kind of hurt your neck after a while and you're

missing a snorkeling. So I think that was pretty helpful to learn about upcoming rapids. And to be

fair, there was only a couple rapids where we went. It wasn't big. Yeah, it was a two mile stretch

that was pretty calm. We had both done it on boats before multiple times. But yeah, I think we

surprised two fishermen and then one boat ignored us and the other boat was pretty interested.

Oh, what are you seeing? So that was pretty fun. Well speaking of what we see, I thought it was

funny because right away I started seeing fish. And then I asked Mel, wow, did you see those fish?

And she raises up her head and looks at me and her mask is fogged over completely white. And she

goes, no, I didn't see it. And so go a little bit further down. I saw some more fish and I thought

she had to have seen those. And so I said, Mel, Mel, did you see those fish? She raises her head

up and her mask is completely fogged over. I didn't see a thing. And then at some point about halfway

down the river, you started seeing fish. But we did see some amazing things. And that's part of

the reason why we did it. You start to get it filled for the aquatic environment in a freshwater

river. That's actually very cool, right? And there's all sorts of things. I saw rainbow trout,

18 inches. It probably weighed three pounds or more. I saw schools of rainbow trout. I also saw

some whitefish. And I'm convinced that I saw a lake trout, which is completely out of place.

Because they're usually that time of the year, very, very deep in the lake. There'd be like 90

feet down in the reservoir. So I don't know why it would be up in the river. But that kind of

surprised me. But that's kind of the fun. And what was interesting is with the limited visibility,

there are lots of surprises. Yeah, like rocks. Talk about the surprises. What that was like.

Yeah, there was your face down and you have your hands in front of you so that when you hit a rock,

you can kind of just leap, leap frog over it, leap frog motion, slide over it like a seal.

And dark shadow of the rock also kind of gave you a hint that there was a big rock coming up

and to avoid it. But there was a couple times where there was a dark shadow with no rock. And that

was a tree or something like that on the bank. And so I kept trying to avoid, avoid the rock.

I couldn't have refined it to avoid it. But I would say the biggest surprise for me was how deep

the holes were in the river. Because the rivers, I don't know, a foot deep. And then there'd be a

hole that was 8, 10, 12 feet deep. Like it was just huge. I don't know. I don't know much about

river hydrodynamics, but I thought that was really interesting. And the other thing, so we have

the illusion of flight, limited visibility. The water was cold. The wet suits made it possible,

but they did not keep me warm. I don't know. That was freezing. Yeah.

So that was an experience. But it was also just weird to lay on your stomach and have that much

movement. Because when else in life, do we lay on our stomach and have that kind of movement?

Maybe if you're a base jumper and a squirrel suit. But what other sports do we lay on our

stomachs and go? Yeah. I don't know. Hang gliders or something. Same, same idea. But with that,

we were both motion sick when we got out. So we got out and the world was not moving that fast.

And then at that point is when we got motion sick. I didn't, I wasn't motion sick in the river,

but when we got out and we were at the car at the bottom, I was pretty, pretty, pretty busy.

Yeah, they, people have different words. It's for it. Like in the sailing community,

I am trying to remember what it, it's not doc shock, but it's something like that. It's doc sickness.

You know, it's when you, you step off the boat that you feel sick. Yeah, land legs, I heard. Yeah,

land legs that, that works. Anyway, it was a crazy thing to do, but here's just kind of the point.

Had you ever done anything like that before? No. Was it a life experience you never expected to have?

Yes. And it was fun. It was fun. It wasn't big. It wasn't hard. I mean, the, the

barrier to entry was I had to get a wet suit. Right. Right. But would you do it again? Yeah,

I'd be scared, but I do it again. What's scary about it? Going head first down a river. Like,

there's so much in protecting your spine that your brain doesn't want you to be going head first

down a river. And by the way, Mel has taught biomechanics and she's a mechanical engineer,

so she really understands that's why they've had a lot. But even more so, this is something I'm

going to share, Mel and I know you're not looking for extra clients, but Mel is the best therapy

massage person I have ever heard of or ever met in the world. And she changes lives by giving

deep, painful, excruciating massages. Right. So she really, really understands biomechanics.

And she, so I understand why you would be thinking about the spine and wondering where my helmet was.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we, you know, we ate regular meals. We didn't have to do like the

freeze drive meal or anything. We, because it was a 15 minute walk for my house to start the adventure.

Yep. Earlier in the day, I had rode my bike. I'd done a slight 30 minutes worth of prep work.

And then we were both able to go home and shower and sleep in our beds. And every adventure

that I do, especially now is I have to have a hot shower and a nice place to sleep.

So that eliminates a lot of the adventures that maybe come up on this podcast quite a bit like

the camping and the hiking and backpacking and things like that. The extended backcountry

anything probably wouldn't be on the list. And I mentioned this before we hit record. I feel the

same way I have to sleep well, which means my sleep system might be extra heavy when I go back

packing, but I care about that. And I also have to stay clean. I can't rough it for day after day

without, without bathing. So I do bathe in the backcountry and it's cold and it, it is shocking.

And it's what makes it possible for me. Because if I don't feel clean, I'm not happy.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I agree. I'm hot shower. I could probably give up a hot shower if it was

really, really cool. But I still need some sort of shower. And the other part that I really

is kind of been my theme is trying to adventure where you are. So I could, you know, go to South

Africa and do something fun. But I'm not close. And it's a long plane ride. And I don't know.

When we lived in California, we went to Hawaii several times. But we haven't been to Hawaii

since we left California. And when we were in North Carolina, we went to Europe a couple times

because of this closure on that side. And since we've been in Colorado, it's kind of hard to take

a vacation from where we live because everywhere else isn't nearly as cool. Just doing stuff

around here is, is pretty, pretty good. Like the white water or snorkeling. And then a couple

weekends ago, I went to, drove six hours to Saint George, Utah and participated in a dinosaur

dig and found a dinosaur fossil that I got to help jack it so they could take it back to the museum

for free. No way. Yeah. What did you find? They don't know. Which is part of why they're taking it back.

But it was a clump of fossils altogether. And there was a shark tooth, a few fish scales,

and then something bigger that they weren't sure. And I guess when you have a clump of fossils

together, that means something more than sporadic fossils. So I got to help jack it that whole area.

And they're taking it back to the museum. So my name might be on the museum in Saint George.

Awesome. And I mean, maybe it was the contents of the shark that fossilized into a ball.

You know, something in the shark stomach. I mean, who knows? That's, that's really cool, though.

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All right. So let's just use this as an example. You just kind of out of the blue, which is what

mill does out of the blue. She says, and I went on a dinosaur dig. So you find these things that

people wouldn't necessarily think about and you do them. When other people don't think about

doing them and they miss out on the opportunity, how on earth did you find a way to go on a dinosaur dig?

Well, I think Facebook has a feed that they know. But you had to look. What gave you the idea?

No, there was like an advertisement for it on Facebook. I'm sure my Facebook feed knows that I

read all the dinosaur articles that come out. So it served it to me. But yeah, there's several

things that people say, oh, wouldn't that be cool if I did that? Yeah. And I think, yes, it would.

And you can pay $50 and do it. And that part doesn't ever happen. So I've been really intentional

about trying to make sure that if I think wouldn't it be cool if that I actually follow through or do

something like it later or just make sure that it happens so that I'm not saving all the adventures

for later. I don't know when when later happens for other people, but I get nervous. So I try to do

them now. You know, I have a friend, Mel that you've not met named Bill. I don't think you've met Bill.

And Bill decided he wanted to see the Aurora Borealis. So he became a Northern Lights chaser.

Cool. And that's another example that I think of people come up with an idea and they're like,

why shouldn't I go look for such and such or try to have this experience? And that's what you're talking

about. But I didn't know this about Bill until just recently. And I was like, really? So he's

gone to Alaska a few times. He's always looking for ways to get far enough north. But north came to us

a couple of weeks ago. And we couldn't see the like the curtains of green dance, right? But we saw

some amazing red and green glows. Did you get out and see any of it? Yeah. Yeah. It was really, I

mean, the thing about Northern Lights, and I don't know if you go to the real Northern Lights,

if it's the same thing, but you can see them so much better if you take a picture.

Yeah. The picture enhances the color quite a bit.

Well, you know, there are only so many photons you can collect on your retina and they just,

you know, they bounce off your retina and disappear. But as soon as you take a camera out there,

you can have a 10 second exposure or something like that. Instead of milliseconds,

you can gather so much more light in the camera. You can see things. And so anyway, I don't know

where that came from, but it's just an example of saying, you know, wouldn't it be interesting if,

and here's another one that you did. Maybe we can talk about bioluminescence. Yeah. I really like

bioluminescence growing up. What is it? It's a chemical reaction that the animal kingdom uses

to either attract prey or mates. But growing up, we chased fireflies all the time.

Some of my fondest summer memories growing up was chasing fireflies, really, really like fireflies.

And then from that, I just got into bioluminescence and how bioluminescence works. I went and saw

the glow worms in New Zealand. And then at some point, I found out about the bioluminescence

in Puerto Rico. So there's a bay in Puerto Rico that is situated in the exact right direction

for the currents to bring in bioluminescence. I think it's plankton. So I had that on my radar

for quite a while. We were trying to figure out what we wanted to do for winter break last year.

And we didn't have a whole lot of time, but we were already in Louisiana. And so we got a plane

from Louisiana to Puerto Rico. And then you have to get on another plane from mainland and

quote-unquote mainland Puerto Rico, the main island of Puerto Rico, to an outlying island called

VAKs. And that was a very small plane. But you get over to VAKs. And then yeah, we just rented a car

and there's five tour companies there. You cannot go by yourself. You have to go with a tour company.

And there was a glass bottom boat one. So we just paid the 50 bucks or whatever it was. And

yeah, it was amazing. You get in your glass bottom boat and they're all scratched up and they

look like they are not useful. But once they're in the water, I guess the water like fills in all

the scratches. So yeah, it doesn't, you can't tell that it's scratched. But yeah, we were out paddling.

And when you stuck your paddling, there would be any disturbance from the water. It lights up. The

plankton lights up into this bright blue. So we're paddling out. We're going fast. And the bottom of

the boat looks like an old tea that has a snow all over it. So that was pretty cool. And then

we get out there and they give us a little talk about science and biology and things like that.

And then they just paddle around for a little bit by ourselves. And so my husband was searing and

we were going kind of on our own by ourselves and we started a fish school of fish. They went

every which way under our boat. It was so cool. And then we saw a big fish chasing a little fish

under the boat because we just sat in our boat and watched. We didn't go anywhere. We just sat

in the boat and was watching for the blue in the in the water. So we had an hour out there. I could

have spent, and I don't know, all night out there. It was lovely. So yeah, I highly recommend VAKs.

You probably have to spend the night there just because of the timing with the getting to and from

mainland Puerto Rico. But I wouldn't really spend much more time than maybe two days there. It wasn't

super interesting on that island. Puerto Rico itself probably has a lot more. But we did a,

three or four days on VAKs and it wasn't. We didn't need to be there that long.

A little bit extra. I actually interviewed a guy that runs a charter sailing service out of

VAK. So he did at the time. And I thought, you know, if I went there, I would have to do things like

that. Because the island is small and you can't exhaust it fairly quickly. It is known for some

really cool beaches, different types of beaches and things and for the bioluminescent. You know,

you'd think about bioluminescence to give people an idea what you're talking about. It may not

be quite this extreme. But think about Pandora and Avatar, the movie. You know, they're walking

through the foreign alien jungle at night and everything glows and spins and flashes. It may not

be that extreme, but still super duper cool, especially because it's real. Yeah. So those,

these are just examples of, oh, here's an idea. Let's do something about it. I think people just,

they get the idea and they think it's not practical or well that it's, you know, maybe it's not that

great, but you're the type of person that says, no, I'm going to go see it. I'm going to do it.

Yeah. And I'm going to go home and sleep in a real bed.

That's not going to be my bed. Just a real bed with a shower.

Well, okay. I remember one of my wife, my wife's name is Ann. One of her favorite things when she

meets people is to say, well, how did you guys meet? And where did you get married? And she asked

those sorts of questions. And the where did you get married? Question got us a very surprising answer.

I think you should tell people about. Oh, yeah. So both my husband and I aren't super into

or being a center of attention or anything like that. So we decided to alope. And I wanted to alope

on the summer solstice somewhere where there was a big long summer day. We were looking at all

sorts of different places. And then one of our friends said, well, stay in the US. The paperwork

gets a little bit trickier if you're outside the US with the marriage certificate. So we knew we

were going to Alaska to alope. So we're trying to figure out where in Alaska. And we were looking

at pictures on the internet. And there was a picture of somebody that alope in a glacier cave

in Alaska. And so we thought that sounds good. So that's what we did. I mean, we found a guy on

Craigslist to scout out a glacier cave. So as the glaciers coming down and melting, it changes

quite a bit. And glacier caves are actually really dangerous because they fall down on you. Yeah,

so you don't want to you don't want to go into a precarious glacier cave. But there's a glacier

outside of Juneau, Alaska that you can hike to. The hike was two hours. We had hired this guy

off Craigslist to go out and find a glacier cave and then hike us to that glacier cave. So we weren't

wandering around trying to get married on the glacier. So we had this guy off Craigslist. He let us

there. He had the wedding dress in my hiking backpack. And in the water bottle holder of my backpack,

I had a dozen roses and some babies breath. And that was it for our flowers. And then we

hiked. It was me, my husband, our best friend that was our efficient photographer. And this guy,

we hired off Craigslist. So out we go, we get into the glacier cave. Looks good. So I have to change.

There's no place to change on the glacier. So I'm just stripping naked on a glacier. And all the

people who are with were pretty nice, you know, kept their back to me so I could get into my dress.

But there's helicopters flying over doing helicopters tours. And we had gone to the visitor center

and Juneau of the glacier across the lake. And the visitor center has binoculars trained on the

glacier. So who knows who saw what. But I get into my wedding dress and we go inside. And

was a four and a half minute ceremony, which was great. We took a couple more pictures. And then

I changed back into my clothes. And we hiked back out on the hike back out. I had a pretty big

freak out because I had too many bobby pins in my hair. And my hair was uncomfortable because I

got my hair done by the guy we hired off Craigslist girlfriend. And so we all had to stop and

everybody was picking like monkeys. They're picking bobby pins out of my hair. So I could put it into

just regular. They're grooming you. Yeah. And then yeah, after that, we went and had lunch at a float

plane restaurant looking over the float planes going in and out of Juneau, which was fish and I hate

fish. So that was that was our wedding. Wow. Not many people have a wedding story like that. And

that goes with the theme, I think that we have going here is that, you know, why not pursue

something different? Yeah, why do you have to do our wedding costs with the hotels for everybody,

flights for everybody. And the Craigslist guy, I think it was 3600 or 3800. Wow. And that was

everything we wanted. We did not need or want anything else. I could have used a better,

better lunch actor though. You know, Mel, I recently learned what the average cost of a wedding is

in Colorado 40 grand 40 grand. So you did it right. Yeah, that's it's pretty crazy. So you've

always kind of been adventurous. I mean, in high school, you're in cross country track. I think

of trail running like that cross country running is adventurous for sure. You've done rag bright

several times. Yeah. I mean, the list of things that you've done that I think most people probably

wouldn't take the time to do, but should have, right? Your list is so long that it ran off my page.

Bungie jumping skydiving. What's it deal with mini golf? How is this? I love mini golf. So

whenever we go to a location, you know, we might be going to VAKs to go do the bioluminescent

kayak tour, but while you're there, I mean, there's lots of other time and I just

always look for mini golf because every course is different. When we were in Europe,

we went to Europe for the last summer and we kind of popped around. We did I think nine countries

in 80s, some odd days. We ended up at the Olympics, which was unintentional, but amazing. Whenever

we have a few hours, I'm always looking to do mini golf and I just love to do mini golf. One time

my husband and I were when we were in North Carolina, we had an afternoon to kill and so we decided

to go do some mini golf and the bet, you have to do a bet. Otherwise, mini golf isn't as fun.

So the bet was whoever won the mini golf got to quit their job in the next year.

We both were, you know, we were okay. Like it was fine on our jobs, but it wasn't anything that we

were passionate about on either side. It was just a means to an end. So the deal was whoever won

got to quit and I had the game of my life career. I was ahead by six strokes with two holes left.

No way. You're going to quit your job. But then we tied and so...

No, and now you're homeless, right? Yeah. So we tied, neither of us quit our job and then yeah,

life went on. But that was a pretty fun game. Pretty intense. There was a lot of tension on that game.

So a mini golf can be much more adventurous than you think if the stakes are high enough.

Yeah, and I mean, I don't know, I don't know what qualifies as an adventure, but they advertise it

as a venture mini golf. Yeah, because there's a fake volcano and there's some sort of a dinosaur

that's going to swallow your ball. Well, yeah. You know, it just kind of cracks me up. So here's

the themes that I'm picking up on. You said you got to sleep in a bed. You want a warm shower.

You need to adventure close to home. Of course, we've been talking about adventures you've done

overseas. But what are other adventures that you've done close to home? I mean, we do go mountain

biking all the time here and you know, we've seen some pretty crazy stuff. This summer we were

mountain biking and we almost ran into moose. So that was a little exciting. Yeah, it was,

we were kind of coming down and then there was a turn at the bottom of the, it was a slight,

slight downhill and then you went up and they were just at that very edge of that turn.

And so I actually didn't see them. My husband had gotten off his bike and the quiet signal

and pointed at him. But they're just munching in the grass on the side. So that's pretty fun.

I do pickleball on Monday nights and kind of sims. Everybody come to guns and play pickleball

with milk on Monday nights and gunnison. We have a good crew. And then one thing I picked up recently

is actually during COVID is when I found it, but it's speed jigsaw puzzling. So that is jigsaw

puzzle races online. And then a couple times a year, I'll go somewhere and do that with real people.

But basically, there's a guy that sends out a jigsaw puzzle, the same one to everybody that's

doing the race and you get online and on zoom and first one done wins. So I really enjoy that.

I don't know. My husband and I will go, we're going, we go to your Ray quite a bit and go to the

hot tubs and we went in April last year, which is kind of a funny time to go to your Ray. Nobody goes

to your Ray in April. It's not except for people that are local like you. Right. Yeah. So we say to

a new hotel and that was, you know, what an adventure, right? A different bed. But the hotel

was in a part, a corner of your Ray that we hadn't really been in. And we're in the hotel and I was

on Google Maps just looking at what Google Maps had around us. And there was a little green,

I think it was box canyon falls or something. It was right behind us. And so I said, well,

we got a couple hours to kill. Let's go check it out. And my husband and I don't like hiking,

but we did for that day. I don't know. And so we go and it is the coolest waterfall I've ever

seen in my life. It was a very tight canyon and it was cold. So there was ice everywhere. There's

ice coating every we got to see the ice. You raised really big for ice climbing. The ice climbing

stuff had already been shut down because it was too warm, but we got to see where they had ice

climb that winter. And then I don't know, it's just a really, really interesting hike. And it was

just an hour in the cost us nothing because while box canyon falls does charge for entry, they don't

charge for entry during off season. When no one was there. And no one was there. So in we went, it was

just it was a great adventure. And then we ended up bringing my husband's family two different parts

of them to go see the falls that summer, just because they're so impressive. We had to pay for

those ones, but that's okay. It is pretty crazy. I've been there, Mel and just to describe it,

it's like a slot canyon that's, I don't know, 150, 200 feet deep. And it in places, it's probably

no more than 15 feet wide, 12 feet maybe. And the water that comes down there through that canyon,

especially in the in the runoff, you know, maybe June. It wow. Yeah. That's it. I mean, you can't

really describe it. It's just a wow. Yeah. And you can't it's if you get into that back corner,

you can't hear your thoughts because the water is so loud coming down. Yes. It's it's really

cool. You raise another town that we should probably talk about. Yeah. No, it's a secret. Yeah.

But we love hot tubs and hot springs and hot water. So we did a trip. We did a mountain biking trip

to the Pacific Northwest in our car this summer for a month. And we stopped at a bunch of different

hot springs all across the Pacific Northwest, which was great. When we were in North Carolina,

we did a lot of ventures close to home in North Carolina. They have Smithsonian museums that are

free because they're part of the Smithsonian. Whatever. I think there's four or five state museums. So we

went and saw all those museums and we saw some really crazy stuff that happened on the beach.

We had bioluminescent on the beach one night. We were sleeping in our car on a bed after we'd

taken the shower at the local rock center. And we couldn't sleep because the bugs had gotten

into the car. These tiny, tiny little sand fliers had gotten through our mosquito netting.

So we couldn't sleep. So we went out to the beach and we saw the Milky Way just so impressive. And

we noticed that wherever we walked, the sand would glow. Something funny in the sand. I don't know

what. So that was pretty cool. It did not sleep good though. So that wasn't great. But we saw

where was that pirate bird got shot, which is not near as overbuilt as it should be. It's a

small hike. You kind of have to guess where he got shot. We found, I think it was near Fort Fisher.

There was evidence that the Germans had actually fired upon mainland US during World War II,

even though the US government says we never got fired on. But they had four or five cannonballs

that had made it to the shore there. I learned about the civilian air patrol at a museum. And it was

fascinating during World War II again. I don't know. I really like to adventure where we are and

get to know what's happening around just a weekend and you're not investing a lot and you don't

know what else was out there. Have you ever gone through all the hassles of getting on the plane,

security, luggage, long waits at the airport, all that kind of stuff. And then when you finally

arrive at your destination, not only are you worn out, but you also might feel a little bit

disconnected. I know that I do when I hop scotch around the planet on a plane. That's one of the

reasons why I love the great American road trips, where you get to drive from one place to another

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time offer. That's OutdoorZ.com promo code ASP. You know, I think you may have moved to the

weekend adventure capital of the planet. One of them, I mean, the nickname for Gunnison is the

base camp of the Rockies. And it's called that for a reason because you can do any mountain sport.

It doesn't matter what it is. You can do any mountain sport from here within a very short drive,

if not just right here itself. So I mean, you're in the right place for that. People ask me where I

like to go on vacation and I actually kind of hedge a little bit and I say, well, if I didn't live

in Gunnison, it would be my favorite vacation destination. So it's hard for me to leave. It's like,

I like it here. We can do so many things. Yeah, the trick with Gunnison is that you have to really

pick your sports because you can't, you don't have enough garage space, you don't have enough

recreation money to get all the gear for all the sports. And then you also don't have enough

like physical energy throughout your day to do all the sports. You have to pick your sports

and you have to pick your winter sport and you have to pick your summer sports. And then

you're always out of shape in Gunnison because the next sport is always on the horizon. And so

you're always having to build muscle and having to get in shape for that next sport because

the season's changed. It's great. I love it. It is fun. Mountain biking gives you the best

cardio workout ever. And of course, you get really good at making your feet going circles.

Right. Yeah. That's really what it is and upper body, you know. But then this season starts.

And you think, I've been going hard all summer. I'm going to be in great shape for skiing.

And then that's a totally different use of your leg muscles completely. And I get on the slopes

and I'm like, Oh, my word. You know, I thought I was in shape, but it's kicking my butt. You're

right. So many things. And there are a lot of fun things in this valley that people don't know about.

They have inter disciplinary or inter sport type races. For instance, there's one where people will

ski mountaineer. So you ski to the top of a mountain and race back down again. And then you jump

in a kayak and you go down the river and a kayak and race down the kayak. And then I think you can

even add mountain biking rate, mountain biking race on top of that. But there are all sorts of

things like that that people put together. Yeah. From the top of Mt. Chris debut to taking a shot at

a bar. Isn't that one of the races? Where ever finishes the shot wins. And one year, there was a

base jumper that jumped off the mountain instead of skiing down the mountain like they ahead.

And they won. They won by six hours. You know, there's also a a chainless race.

I don't do they still do it? Yeah, I've wanted to go. Yeah, I haven't been to it. I want to

see that this year. I've heard people say it's incredibly dangerous, but they take the chain

off their mountain bikes and they go up on a high mountain pass and then they they race down.

And since you can't pedal, then it gives you the motivation to take corners way too fast.

Right. Because you can't speed up that. Yeah. So anyway, there's all that kind of stuff.

I want to tell another one on you, Mel. This doesn't sound like an adventure sport,

but it leans that direction. And let me say why? One of the things I say about adventure sports all

the time is that it ends up being about the community, the people that you meet, you know, the fun

you have like pickleball. You're pickleball night. It's really fun to play pickleball, but it's

not really about pickleball. Right. It's about all these great people who show up that you become

friends with. And what a beautiful thing to do for the community when you and muffin started this

thing, you know, people that I had never met became acquaintances or friends. And it's just so super

cool. So anyway, this is one I had never heard of. And I found out that you do this every year,

you and muffin go to a board game convention. And I know I know that people are like, that's not

an adventure sport, but it is about the community and something different. Yeah. And so anyway,

tell us about that. Yeah. So there's several board game conventions throughout the year. We only

go to one and we go with a group of people. So the reason we go to this specific one is because

of the people that it go. And these are the only time we see these people of the year. So it's a

great time to spend time with other people. And you know, sometimes you're a space explorer. I mean,

you can, you know, depending on what board game you're playing, I'm a cheese maker. There's a

cheese making one. It's pretty fun called for much. But you know, there's one that anyway,

that doesn't really matter. But we get to hang out with all our friends. And then while it isn't

rough and tough. And, you know, I get really tired because my brain is working the whole time. Yeah,

yeah. The the weight room is quite open at the hotel that we stay at during the in the board game

convention. But whether it's an adventure or not, it's a good way. I see a lot of people that I

don't normally see in the activities I do that are in different, you know, they have a wheelchair

or they have some other physical handicaps or even mental handicaps that may not be able to do

stuff with your bodies out and about middle of nowhere, Colorado. But this is another way that people

can get out and do things and have community and meet with people. So yeah, I have a ton of fun.

And it's how many days is it? You play board games for five days. Five days of board games.

So most people think of a board game is well, once a month, the family might, if we all agree,

you get together and play Scrabble one night. But you're doing five full days of board games.

Yeah, it's pretty pretty intense. I got a new board game for the next board night, which I'm

very excited about. But yeah, I don't know if we play board games any barbecue. And it's a great

five day adventure. Well, speaking of barbecue, I have to share this one because I it's meant so much

to me. Muffin and I were mountain biking and we stopped at the top of the hill and we're visiting

a little bit before we took this downhill. And I said, you know what we ought to do? We ought to try

to find the best hot wings in Gunnison. And Muffin, it's probably why he married you, Mel. He was

like, oh, yeah, let's do it. You know, he's in. And it was a small thing. But what that led to

is that we have met and had wings in, you know, a half a dozen to a dozen locations. But we've had

all those evenings to visit and to laugh and to, you know, give each other a hard time and to learn

from each other. And why? Because we had an excuse hot wings. I mean, it could have been anything.

It could have been the best ribs. It could have been whatever, you know, but whenever you set some

sort of a goal like that, it becomes a thing that gets you there. And I think that's what the

board game convention is about. I mean, some people just really love board games. And I think

you might be one of them. But I think so many people that would go there would be like, no, I just

really love the event. It's the people, you know, it's doing something completely different.

Yeah, it's a day, a day that you'd, I don't know, it's just something different. Yeah, it's not part

of your regular day. My husband is that he's very keen on keeping his eyes open for something

that is an adventure that maybe we weren't on the way to do. So we were in Belize. We were going

to this piece of place in Belize and there's an advertisement for night snorkeling. Wow. Yeah.

So we signed up and we went night snorkeling and it was terrifying in a couple different ways.

We were the only two on the boat. We were getting taken out into the ocean by two people. We didn't know

that didn't speak English very well. And going out at night into the ocean with two people you

don't know is a little bit scary in a foreign country. And then there's a part of your hind brain

that does not want you to get into the ocean at night. There's something. Yeah. But we saw

really cool fish that you don't get to see because I guess there's nocturnal fish or something.

I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it was a great experience and they took us back to shore and

we paid them and we left and it was fun. But he's just really good about saying, oh, I saw,

you know, why don't we do that? Why not? We were in North Carolina one time and there was a museum

and it was kind of late in the day and I was kind of tired. I didn't really want to go. But we

were pretty far from home and he's like, well, if we don't go now, we aren't going to go. Why don't

we just go? And it was all about the people that came over to found America and then they

disappeared. The Roanoke, the Roanoke colony. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of the basis of it

and then it was just a great day and I talked about pirates with the guy that was on the pirate ship

and him and I had a really good conversation about North Carolina pirates and it was something

that we wouldn't have done and it was just something that my husband said, well, why don't we just

try it and see what happens and we weren't even going there for that reason. So he's really,

really good about just keeping his eyes open and looking for fun things to do to supplement our

current adventure. How do you make room in your life for spontaneity? Yeah, I don't know. I'm not

very good at it. My husband's way better. I live and die by my calendar and so that's, yeah, I'm

not sure how that works. Maybe it's it's the combination of your planning that gets you somewhere

in his spontaneity that makes something unexpected happen. Yeah, probably. Yeah, I don't know. I

get so focused. My eyes, I just get so focused. I'm driving to the grocery store. I get to the

grocery store. I do my grocery shopping and he will go to the grocery store and he'll see three

different people that we know along the way and say hi and then he's at the grocery store. He sees

a couple more people and I don't see anybody and it's just because my eyes, I don't have my eyes open

that way. I don't know what it is about his awareness but he's way more aware about the outside world

and I am looking at my calendar, making sure we're getting to where we need to go by a certain time

and that we have a three-hour space here and it's a really good combination. Well, in different

people approach life in different ways and there's not a wrong way in a right way. They're just

different ways. You know, you told me a while back that you kind of felt like when it came to

adventure in your lifestyle that you were a mile wide in an inch deep. Yeah. What do you mean by that?

I don't know. I listen to the podcast and you know, there's people that are I'm a raft guide and

I've been rafting and I've been doing rafting and I know a lot about rivers and rafting and that

is really cool and I love to have dinner with those people because I have a lot of questions about

rafting. Right. Or whatever and then there's people that are really into biking, are people that

are really into running or something and I just feel like I am very open to wherever the wind blows

me and I'm not good at a lot of things that I do so I often pay for a guide or whatever but I just

like to experience all of it. How has that changed your life, you think? I don't know. I'm not sure.

I get the feeling you've always been this way. Yeah. I don't know that it changed my life. It's

just how it is. See, the reason I ask it is that there's so many people when we describe the kind

of little mini adventures is what I'll call them. You know, that you do such a huge variety.

There's so many people that are going, oh, I've never done that. Well, who would have thought of

that? What's that about? You know, and I think it would change people's lives. If they said,

I'm going to be like Mel for a little while. I'm going to give it a shot for a few months and see

what happens. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I listened to a podcast one time and I heard them describe

they have on the podcast, they're talking about how they have an adventure bag. So they have a

change of clothes, toothbrush, snacks, and then they just keep that in the car. So some people might

call it a go bag, you know, fires or whatever, but they call it their adventure bag. So if they're

off doing something, they can keep going and keep doing it. And then also on that podcast,

they described how they had laminated a map of their surrounding town and had circled

or a surrounding area and circled places where they wanted to go. So I heard that and thought,

that's a great idea. And you've been in my house. We have a four foot by eight foot sheet of glass

mounted on a wall in her house and behind it is a map of Colorado, a map of our county and the map

of our local mountain biking place. And it's a marker board that I use and I keep a list of

things I need to do or want to go or I circled things on the map. So dinosaur national monument was

circled for a while, but we knocked that off this year. And so I just keep an ongoing list of things

where I want to go and things that I want to do. And if it isn't on the state of Colorado or

inner county, I just have a side list that has the other stuff that I want to do. That way,

I don't have to store it in my brain and I don't have to, it's not stressful when it comes like,

hey, I've got a week of time and I'm going to already be in Florida. What should I do? And then I can

go look at my list and see what's close to Florida and connect something to that. And so I really,

really like having our map that is mounted behind the glass. I think that is a really cool use

of a giant wall in her house. I think that's such a great idea. Just the idea that you put something

on the map. It takes on purpose then and intention. And you do the thing that you otherwise probably

would never do because what do most people do? They watch TV or they watch YouTube or they, you know,

they get home from work and they have a beer and they put their feet up. And why? Because they haven't

thought of all the other things that they could be doing or they have and then they forgot it. And so

you got to keep your brain efficient. Once you already think of it, you don't need to think of it

again. Just put it down where you can see it later. I have a new one for you. Okay. Okay. Yesterday,

I interviewed Bill Foltz and his interview probably will come out about the same time as

yours. So anyway, he started a database of arches in Kentucky, finding natural arches in Kentucky

and waterfalls. Okay. And over 3,000 arches in Kentucky and who would have known? And now there

are people that are arch hunters that go out and try to find new ones that no one knew about to add

to the database. They're documenting all of these natural wonders. But the main part is people

are getting out and exploring their national forest, Dandelion National Forest and other places,

you know, the Red River Gorge, all these places in Kentucky. They're getting out because they have

a reason to. Right. Is it a big deal? I don't know if it's a big deal. Is it a curiosity? Definitely a

curiosity. But that's not the point. The point is they have a purpose that gets them out the door.

Yeah. And so I was thinking, oh, well, in Colorado, people do 14ers. It's similar. It's like, oh,

I'll do 14ers. And one of my favorite things about 14ers is it takes you to different places in

the state. You wouldn't have gone otherwise. Right. You see things, right? It's not necessarily

about the 14er. It's the excuse. So this is the one I came up with for you. Okay. All around

Gunnison County in this area, the everything all the topography here was created by Volcanoes.

And because of that, we have breccia, which is a soft conglomerate that's often under basalt.

And it makes towers of rock. People might call them chimneys or spires or we call them palisades

sometimes. But when I've been exploring the county, I keep running across. Well, look at that.

There's another or people call it a balanced rock, right? Something like that. They're everywhere

around here, but I don't think anyone has documented them. How many of them could you find in Gunnison

County? Yeah. I mean, if they're on a mountain bike trail, probably a lot. They are here. The point

is what if a group of people use that as an excuse to explore the county and say, I'm going to hunt

for balanced rocks. Right. Yeah. You know? That'd be so fun. Yeah.

Anyway, these are the sorts of things we have burned up all of our time mill. But I love your example

of doing the mini adventures intentionally. The map on the wall. I mean, that's it. That

captures the whole idea. Put the map on the wall and circle thing. Yeah. It could change,

change so much about the way you experience life. And I know it has for you. Yeah. Anyway,

any last words of advice for the listener? Yeah. Just go. So many people are worried about risk.

But in the stuff that I do, I mean, some of it's risky. Some of it isn't. It doesn't really matter.

Probably the most risky thing we do is driving there. Right. So some people will just stay inside

because that's less risky. But I would say there's a counter argument that there's a risk

to staying inside too. So I don't know. You only have a body for so long. You only have the current

body. You have for so long the injuries. They just compound. So you got to do stuff while you can

do stuff. So the big word of advice is two letters. Go. Yeah. That's awesome. I love it. Well,

thanks, Mill, for your time. I really like the the way that you put your life together. Super

cool. Yeah. You bet. All right. Everybody out there figure it out. It might be a dozen things,

an inch wide. And I'm or a mile wide in an inch deep. Or maybe you find the one thing you really

want to pour yourself into the regardless. Get out there and have some fun. Yeah. Go for it.