Ep. 1174: Adventure at Any Age with Curt and Cindy Liljedahl

You're listening to The Adventure Sports Podcast.

Thanks for adventuring with us as we discover what incredible athletes and outdoor enthusiasts

are doing all over the world.

Now here's your host, Kurt Linville.

Hello friends and happy groundhog day.

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And of course in this episode we talk about getting ready to go to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro.

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Today's episode is not just about planning for adventures today, but it's about planning

for an adventure focused lifestyle for the long haul.

This one's going to be great.

So let's dive into the episode.

Hey friends, today we have Kurt and Cindy Liljadal with us and they have been on the Adventure

Sports Podcast a couple of times.

And I was trying to remember if I interviewed them, I know this sounds really weird, but

when I listened to a show that some other host did, I remember the show, but I don't remember

if I was in it.

Right.

So anyway, turns out that they've been on the adventure sports podcast a couple of times

with Mason, not with me, but I'm excited to get a chance to visit with them.

The first time they were on was in 2019 and then they were on again in 2020.

And so it's been five years, where does the time go?

That is crazy, but their focus is on adventure focused retirement.

I wanted to visit with them about what they have going on in their retirement because

they do so much travel and so many adventurous types of things in their travel.

You know, sometimes you hear of people that are retired and they like, well, we'll go

to Europe and we stay in a nice hotel.

I think that Kurt and Cindy are going to let us know that you can do things a lot more

adventurous than that.

Right.

Don't get me wrong.

Yeah.

Nice hotel.

Yeah.

Nice hotels.

Okay, from time to time, isn't it?

Yeah.

Anyway, Kurt and Cindy, welcome to the program.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah.

It's a lot of fun to do things like this.

Oh, it is.

And Kurt and Cindy have their own podcast as well, by the way.

It's Adventure Retired.

So just Advent to like adventure, but then retired or you could say Adventure Tired if

you wanted to.

We say Adventure Retired because it spells the same way.

Anyway, they have their own podcast and that's really fun because it, you know, gives

you the perspective of not only what they're doing, but other people that they meet along

the way and their travels and stuff like that.

So, but we wanted to talk kind of in two ways.

I want to talk about adventure in retirement, but I also want to talk to people that are

young who are building their careers and building their families and who are thinking about what

would adventure look like later in life and what can I do now so that later in life I

can have those adventures.

So we'll do both things.

So this is going to be, I mean, the Adventure Sports Podcast reaches all ages.

It really does.

And we are about half what I would call young adults and then half what I would call middle

aged or older adults.

And so this is for everybody.

Kurt and Cindy, when you first contacted me about this, you wanted to talk about another

adventure that you did that was really unique in Peru.

We might as well just start there.

Okay.

So it was Sacred Valley Peru in Sky Lodge, Adventure Suites.

And I'll let you explain all of this, but my first question is why Sacred Valley, what

did they, do you know what that was about, why they call it Sacred Valley?

When we get an urge to travel, I should say Kurt is the one that does all the planning

and that's fine because in every family, somebody does the planning and somebody else is

the encouragement.

It shows up at the airport.

I'm the encourager.

I'm like, okay, but I also like to get on social media and look at that area that we're

going to.

And I saw on Facebook or Mr. Ben Pinterest about Sacred Valley.

And I told him, because our goal was to go to Machu Picchu, right, because I wanted to

see Machu Picchu.

He'd already been there and I wanted to see it.

I said, Kurt is Sacred Valley on the way and he's like, yeah, we go right through it.

And I'm like, well, then I want to do the Sacred Valley experience.

And he's like, really?

The adventure pod.

And I had seen him 12 years ago and I took my mother to Machu Picchu and you're driving

and you're looking up and seeing these pods on the side of Cliff.

I'm thinking, that's the coolest thing in the world, but my wife wouldn't do that.

Well, 12 years later, she sees him on Pinterest and says, ooh, let's do that.

Let's do that.

So describe what we're talking about, Sky Lodge.

These are glass pods hanging on the side of a cliff way up above the valley, but describe

this to us.

Okay.

Well, you, the valley is beautiful.

Yeah, the Sacred Valley is beautiful.

It's kind of between Kusuko and Machu Picchu and the pods.

There are four of them and they're 400 meters above the ground.

Right.

And you light on a sheer cliff.

You climb a ladder like rungs of a ladder the entire way up.

Yeah.

They have rebar ladders into the side of the mountain that they've drilled and then put

these, glued these rebars in there.

And so you have a ladder that you're climbing and you're double attached in.

There's a cable that runs the side of it and you have a belt on and you have two care

beeners that you hook over this cable.

So about every 10, about to every 10 feet.

So the worst thing that if you fell and you're doing everything correctly, you would only

fall like 10 feet and you have helmets on and everything, but you're just climbing and

then you take one off and put it over the little thing that's in the side of it.

And then you take the other one off and do it.

You're always clipped in once they, they stress that to you.

And there's only, there's one area where you get up to like halfway up there and you

actually are on the side of the cliff and you have to go sideways.

And so you're just like on a bridge that's three cables wide.

And you go across like maybe 20, 20 feet and you just, you are, you're, you're, you

just go to cross, you know, you're way up there, you're way up there like I said, we

calculated, you know, 400 meters and about every 10 meters is the, or that you have to

change things.

So we did roughly 1200 ladder climbs.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Rungs of the ladder.

Yeah.

Rungs of the ladder and some of them you are literally upside down going backwards and

coming up over a thing.

So a ledge.

Yeah.

If you were to let go of your feet, they're going to swing out.

Yeah.

But we felt very safe at it.

Yeah.

Sometimes you have to actually hook your arm in one of the rungs to get your safe, you know,

and then you climb up and you hook your arm again and it was just amazing.

And she's not a big height person.

Yeah.

She's not.

But I'm not scared of heights.

I just, I'm the one that works out for this.

So I started working out.

And I knew this was going to be a hard thing physically.

We're 64 years old.

So you know, it's not like we're in our 30s and 40s doing this.

So which the other two couples that went with us were not, they weren't friends of ours,

but they were doing it.

Yeah.

One one married couple was in their 20s.

They were from Italy.

No, they were from Miami.

Oh, they were Miami and the other couple was in their 30s and they were from Italy.

Yeah.

And they just, they were a little faster than we were.

But we were like, I wanted to also, I mean, you know, you can go up fast, but I wanted

to go up and like every 10 feet, I want to turn around and look.

So I had some kind of person I am.

Even when we went down the Grand Canyon, I need to stop and look because I worth 64.

I'm never going to do this again.

Maybe I want to see, and I want to remember the sights that I'm seeing, you know, and

it was beautiful every, we had the most perfect day in this beautiful out.

The temperature was great and every, every time I stopped to turn around and look, it

was a different view.

I swear, I changed totally every time it was beautiful.

So this is in Peru, yes, and in Peru gets really high up, but I don't know where you were

in relation.

So what was the elevation, you know, the elevation for this, it's kind of interesting

because everybody thinks Machu Picchu is so high, but that's only at like 600 or 6000

meters Machu Picchu.

It looks like it's clear up there, but it's not.

And so we were roughly 6 to 7,000 meters in the sacred valley.

You're in the, you're by the town of Olatombo, and which is, once again, it's kind of weird

because you just came from Kusko, which is that 11,000 meter.

My higher.

It's one of the highest.

My talking meters are feet.

I'm getting confused.

No, excuse me.

You're right, it's feet.

It's feet.

I think it's feet.

Yeah, that's feet, not meters.

The reason is because 11,000 meters would, would be higher than Everest.

Yeah, it's feet.

It's not meters.

Right.

But we climbed 400 meters.

So.

Right.

And so which is like 1,300 feet more or less, I tell you what, the rest of the world puts

all of the elevations and meters.

And since we talk feet, it's always confusing on the podcast.

It is.

Right.

It's always confusing.

Yeah.

I don't know how many times I've had this conversation.

So you're saying it was like 6,7,000 feet.

Right.

So you're up there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's not, it's not above, like into the thin air, above tree line.

No, no, no.

That's not what it's so ever.

No.

Now, this is go is because it was at 11,000 feet.

A lot of people get altitude sickness at Kusko.

Yeah.

It's basically where you came from that morning.

That's what it's so cool when you book this excursion.

They actually, you know, they pick you up at your hotel, which is great.

So we drove for about two hours to get there.

And they have like a 20 minute class, they tell you what you're going to do in 20 minutes.

And then you're already start and where, and this is in the afternoon, they had done

one in the morning, but you did, they didn't stay overnight.

They just went up there and they go up and then zip line down, where we went out and

then stay the night and then zip line down.

And there's the four pods, three of them are sleeping pods.

And the fourth pod is bigger.

And that's where they actually cook and gourmet meal for you twice.

Yeah.

Oh nice.

Yeah.

And so once when you get up there, you're in, you go there for dinner and then you go

back to your pod and you do what you want, you know, and then the next morning at breakfast,

you go over to this pod and they serve you a great breakfast.

But they're very safe about it.

You know, any time you are going out of your pod, you have a radio that you got a radio,

the guys that who are staying in the dinner area, you radio them and say, Curtin's in

you're going up on the roof to look at stars and they say, okay, buckle in.

And so we buckle in and I know they were keeping an eye on us too, but it's very safe,

very safe.

And of course, we had to stay in the pod that was the tall, or at the highest, right?

So we're up there and we get up there and it's about six o'clock at night.

Now, because we started about four, four, thirty, yeah, and so it took about an hour

and a half to climb it.

So we get up there.

It's dark already.

So you have your headlights on and so then we go to our pod and kind of relax for a few

minutes and then dinner's going to be like it's seven and it's pitch black.

And so now you got to do all the climbing from your pod over to the bigger pod in the

dark.

Yeah, that's about 20 yards or so.

And it felt like a million and you're up there in the void.

And we're in the pod.

This, of course, the top, the highest one.

And so we kind of have to do that backwards climb again where you're, you're kind of bending

over backwards to get over to the other one.

And that was kind of scary because that and being pitch black is so dark.

You don't, you don't look at your feet.

You look at your hands, you know, and okay, you hope your feet are finding a run and

yeah.

Well, I'm, I have their website here and I pulled it up just so I could look at it.

And I want to tell the listeners, if you're at a computer, then you do need to see this.

These pods are all glass.

So you, you know, you sleep in them or have your dinner in them and you're looking out

across the valley and I mean, they're just hanging on this cliff face.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the, the pod itself, you get into it, you come in through it.

There's like a little, they have stories.

So there's games and stuff so you can play like if you want to play cribbing your cards.

And then there's a two beds that are lower and then a huge, a big queen size or king size

bed that's at the very edge.

So that's where we slept.

But four people could actually sleep in this pod.

Right.

So if you brought family members, but then on the other end, there's a bathroom.

And that was the one thing that people always ask us, what did you do about the bathroom?

And while you open up the bathroom and there is a toilet, right?

And then there is a urinal that is looks like kind of a final weird, we're dissing you.

But what happens is, of course, men can use the urinal and it just goes right off the side

of the mountain.

And when the women have to use the bathroom, there's like a little, but you call that, yeah.

We used to have a pot when they're old days.

A bowl.

Well, there's a pot.

You put into the toilet and there is an actual toilet there, a honey pot.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you put this honey pot into the toilet and of course it catches the urine.

And then you pour that down to the urine area.

Oh, wow.

And then if you have to use it for something else, you have to beg and there's no way anybody

does anything else.

Right.

You just make sure it's pee and that's it, you know, but if you have to do it, yeah,

you go into a plastic bag and then you seal it up and then they have another tube that

you drop it down there and those guys, they will carry it down.

And I was like, that ain't going to happen, you know, that is not going to happen.

Well, it's nice to know.

I mean, people are going to have these questions and it's like, what do you do about that?

And there's running water.

I mean, there's a little sink that has pressure that actually has water.

Well, it was like a water job.

That's a pump.

And, you know, they bring the water in on their back.

Yeah, our photographer that morning, the morning we were there, he had climbed back up because

he was going to take pictures of us all and he's got one of those 10 gallon things in

his backpack.

And he climbed up this, of course, they're good.

These boys climb it like three times a day.

They're getting strong.

Yeah.

Well, I ask him, how long does it take you and they're like, eh, half an hour, 40 minutes.

Took us an hour and a half.

Yeah.

Well, were you tired?

I mean, the funny thing, this is why I love this because the next day, Kurt could barely

walk because he said, my thighs were killing me.

Me?

Not a problem.

I had not.

I didn't.

I was perfect.

Listen to you said you were training for this, right?

I did.

I was working out before.

She was going to the personal trainer.

And I had absolutely no problems.

It's just my thighs just screaming the next day.

We went to Vancouver Island and went to, eh, it's wild play, I guess, is what they call

it now.

It's changed names so many times I forget.

But it's a, it's a ropes course, high up in the trees and you do zip lines and all sorts

of games up there, um, balance games and stuff.

And we wanted my, uh, my new son-in-law to see it because it was his first time to be

up there.

So we went back and we spent two or three hours, I guess, up in the trees, like a bunch

of monkeys.

I was spanked by the time we were done, but we didn't do anything like the elevation

that you did.

I'm thinking about climbing a, like a 1,300 foot long ladder.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's a lot of chin ups.

It was.

It was.

And like I said, my thighs were killing me the next day.

I felt really good that I could run.

But we were tired.

You know, you're going to sleep good that night because you had a good workout.

Well, it sounds fun.

That night was so windy.

We wanted to go up out of the pod and sit on the, on the top, this kind of like a deck

that you could sit on and watch the stars.

But it was so windy that, you know, you were, it was just really windy.

Yeah.

So about, finally, about one o'clock, it stopped and we kind of woke up, but then and

just looked at the stars and, and that we didn't go outside that night.

It just, yeah.

It was just too much.

Yeah.

I didn't want to blow off the side.

But it was beautiful weather, rather than that climbing it.

You know, the next day, the next day you get up and you had this great breakfast.

I mean, these guys are really good cooks.

They made this breakfast for you.

It's got everything you would want.

I mean, everything.

And then you take off, you go pack your backpack, whatever you have and you, everybody starts

going up again.

You climb just a little bit up and then you go around the cliff that you're on.

And then there's seven zip lines right back to the parking lot.

Yeah.

That's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And these are big zip lines.

Yeah, one of them.

Seven hundred and forty feet or something.

Yeah.

It was, they're huge.

I mean, they take like, you know, they almost take like a half a minute to a minute.

You know, sometimes zip lines just go so fast and you're right there.

This one you actually have time to look around and one of them, you have to do tandem because

the weight is, they got to make sure that you don't have to do that.

Make sure you get there because it's kind of more of a gradual or yeah, gradual.

So it was, it was great.

Yeah.

I love zip lining period and we have zip line down almost every country you've gone to.

Really?

Yeah.

We just, you know, you always, you always worry about it.

They're safety, but we have never had safety issues in any of them.

They've always been very upright and concerned about safety and I love zip lining and they offered

me a job.

I almost took it, but I got, I better come home, you know, I was like, oh, man.

Like I said, I couldn't say enough about the young men that went up there and were our

guides, you know, and chefs and they were just, they were wonderful, you know, and one

of them, it was his last climb and then he was moving back to Venezuela.

That's my yellow, yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

He'd been there eight years and he was, he was going back and that was neat.

It was really cool.

Man.

So that's called sky lodge adventure suites.

Yes.

There's two different kinds.

There's the one that we did, which is more sky lodge, sky lodge, and then you go around

them out and not very much down the sacred valley a little and there's the star lodge.

And the star lodge are not as high and you actually climb down steps to get to them.

Yeah.

Well, there's really.

Yeah.

They have steps there.

It's more for, I guess, people are.

Yeah.

Older.

You know, if you don't, it's a, they still snap you in and everything, but that one's

fancier.

I'm sure it costs a little more because one of their pods there has a hot tub.

So the whole wow.

Yeah.

They can go out of their little sleeping pod and go sleep or go to the hot tub, you know.

I told Kurt, we're going to do that one.

We're 70.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to do that one.

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This is a beautiful example of an adventurous thing to do and I'm impressed.

I'm going to say it.

I'm impressed.

You aren't old yet, but you're not spring chickens either.

This is impressive.

You said 64?

Yeah.

64.

64.

We asked for the oldest one up and they said they had a 73 year old guy doing it.

Yeah.

And I'm like, wow, that's a, that's pretty impressive.

There are a lot of, I'll call them aging athletes in the valley where we are and what I've observed

is that there's no reason you can't do amazing big adventures as you age as long as you don't

stop.

Right.

That's right.

If you ever stop doing it, it won't take long before you won't be able to do it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I think that is the key.

And you know, Kurt, as you age, and this is for all your younger people, everybody always

asks us because we do retire pretty young.

We retired at 54 and everybody asks us, well, you know, what is the best thing?

What do I need to do to retire?

The best thing is your health because if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.

Right.

If you can at 54 or 53 or 45, start to keep your health in check in terms of working

out, walking, just doing something physical, moving, moving, it makes your retirement so much

sweeter.

Yeah.

Hmm.

That's, that's well said.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk about this for the, the younger adults in the program, if they want

to have an adventure-focused lifestyle in their retirement years.

What should they be doing now?

That's the question.

I, my opinions, my opinions, max your Roth IRAs out and max your regular IRAs out.

Just, you know, I'm not saying live like a miser while you're working because when, even

when we're working, we took great vacations and we went to Europe and stuff like that with

our kids, but you got, you got to plan for this stage of life because it would not be

fun to get to this stage and you don't have enough money to travel, you know.

And, and we were two school teachers.

It's not like we made $100,000 each, you know, for our career, in our career.

We, we were two school teachers and, I mean, start early, start, I, we tell our own kids.

And if it's $100 a month, you can put away.

It will pay off in the long run, you know.

So, you know, start early and the other thing Kurt always said is same house, same wife.

Same house, same house, you know.

Some people don't have a choice about it.

But yeah, you don't have, sometimes you don't have a choice about that.

But, you know, when we were in the young, let's say the 30s, the 30s and 40s, a lot of

our friends were building and going into bigger homes and that kind of a thing.

We had a really beautiful house, we had a swimming pool in our backyard that we put in.

But, you know, when you can, if you can get your house and be comfortable in your house

and not have that envy of, of boys trying to be, you know, to, to add in or what it just,

it does make a difference in the long run because I think envy is, is the hardest thing

to overcome when you're, you see your friends buying the motorcycles or the speedboats and

all that.

We, we decided to focus ours on saving for the future and then also we, we took great trips

in the summer.

As teachers, we had summers off and so we said, you know what?

If we save all year long, we were going to be able to, to go to the national parks ever.

You know, we had a little camper that we had and we had it for years and, you know, we

did things, we, we tried to live within our means and it's just saving a lot.

I mean, just trying to save as much as we could.

Hmm.

That's a good advice.

Give you an idea.

The sky lodge is, we were in a package that I had a travel company line up, but I think

they're right at 950 to 1,000 bucks a night for a night.

So, I mean, but how often do you get to do something like that?

Right.

And so it's not cheap, you know, but if you want to, like I said, the other couples

were a lot younger than us and they were doing it.

Yeah.

And I, and I think too, if you book it yourself and I go through a company, it's probably

a little bit cheaper, you know, we went through a company.

I would tell a young people, you, first of all, focus on your, your, your family and your

health and then try to, to, to start the saving because that investing, you know, for

the long run is when it pays off, you know, and we had a couple of years where it was,

you know, we're in the 80s, we're in the stock market crash, you know, and you see all this

money going out the window and you're like, oh, my God, but it recovers, you know, and

it comes around.

And so it comes back.

Yeah, listen, listen to some good podcasts about that.

I want to say something to get your perspective on this.

It's easy to see the shiny new fill in the blank.

And when you do get something that is new and shiny and fun, then it is exciting.

But in my experience, that excitement wanes fairly quickly.

And then you're like, I spent how much on this and now I've got to take care of this shiny

thing or what do I do with it or it's taking up space or, and I'm not saying don't have,

have good fun things, toys, I mean, that I'm not saying don't do it.

But I am saying if we can look past the initial excitement to what it's going to be long

term, and the hardest part for this is probably the house itself, right, right.

You know, because you look at the house and you think, oh, man, if we just live there,

we'd be happy.

Well, first of all, that doesn't work.

The happiness doesn't come from the things.

It's just a distraction and they will distract you.

It is fun.

They can be exciting, but that's not long term happiness and long term happiness.

Cindy, it's what you said.

It's family.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's health.

Memories.

Memories.

It's always been the type that we had common dreams and we talked about things that we

wanted to do.

So, you know, if you don't have that conversation with the person that you're living with or

your spouse, if you don't say, okay, this is what I want in the future.

What do we need to get there?

Then, if you're only just thinking about right now, you don't have those goals.

And so that sacrifice doesn't happen.

But when you have a goal and you say, okay, I, when I, we want to retire, we're 50s.

All right.

So what do we have to do for that?

Well, we were working, you know, he, he was a coach and a teacher.

I was a teacher and I worked at the university part time and I had two-terrain business.

Every, every little thing is all going to a goal and that goal, you got to have those

goals in line.

Common goals.

Yeah.

And you got to start dreaming when you're young, okay?

I want to do this, you know, and what would you say to a couple who start to share their

dreams a little bit?

They're like, well, my goals would be this, these are like my bucket list items.

What are yours?

What if those are completely different buckets?

Yeah.

That's a, that's a good point because we've talked to people like that.

Yeah, we've talked to people like that on our podcast, but sometimes you got to negotiate,

you know, like one of, first of venture we did in retirement, I wanted to go to the bottom

of the Grand Canyon and she was kind of iffy on that because it's a hike.

But she, she, she wanted to do it.

You know, she was scared about it, nervous about it, but she wanted to do it.

So if you have a spouse that gets you out of your comfort zone, don't draw that hard

line.

You know, give it a shot.

I'm not saying do stupid things, don't, you know, don't do stupid things, but you have

to give in and compromise, you know, compromises a lot of it.

Yeah.

And like I said, I think too far lucky because Kurt's the planner and I'm just the

encourager.

I mean, that's how I see my life.

I don't want to plan because I can screw up the computer just turning it on.

You know, I've actually booked us tickets to movies and we get to the theater and it's

for the next day, you know, and so I mean, I know I screw up, so it's good that he knows

how to do that and but I think a lot of it is just having goals.

Think about your life, you know, when you're young, think about your life, what do you want

your life to look like when you're in your forties?

What do you want it to look like when you're 50?

What do you want it to look like when you're 60?

And we, you know, my dad, a lot of our retirement early was because I knew my dad retired at

62 in November and found out he was dying of cancer in January.

Oh, no.

And I mean, it's been, you know, I still, it's still hard and it's been over 20 years.

I did not want that.

And we had friends that never even made it to retirement, you know?

Right.

I told Kurt I said, as soon as we can retire, I want to retire.

Or didn't make it to retirement together.

Yes.

Yeah, that happens too.

It does.

And I said, you know, whether, and, you know, I, I feel I could go at any time now and I

be out, I would die of a wonderful, happy person because I've done so much in my retirement

already.

Yeah.

I feel, you know, that's nice.

And that's a, that's a beautiful thing to be able to say, that is, you know, to be

able to say, this has been a good life.

I have done the things, not that I'm going to stop.

But if I had to stop, I could be satisfied.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's just so much that, you know, so many people and as you grow older, you, you,

you see this, you see friends that, you know, we have a friend that just lost his daughter

at 31, you know, it's just, ah, horrible.

And I'm just like, we're so blessed that we were able to do what we have done.

And that we're planning to do because we got more things on the, on the burner, you

know.

Well, let's, let's talk about Venn diagrams for a second.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, you, you, you, I don't write, I told Kurt and Cindy that I was a teacher

years ago myself.

So the Venn diagram is like, you draw the, the circles, right, that overlap or don't

overlap.

And it's like, okay, things that I'm interested in, my bucket list, you know, things

that, and they're going to be things on there that you, you might say, well, I, I would

do it if, you know, if it was convenient, it's not, it's not a big goal, but it's something

that I, I could see myself saying, all right, I'll do that, you know.

But if you draw the Venn diagrams and they overlap, some people overlap a lot.

I can tell by talking to you that you have a lot of overlap in your Venn diagrams.

And some people maybe just barely overlap and then just kind of like, why did you get married?

No, I'm sorry.

I don't want to go there.

But I guess the thing I wanted to say about it is that as your life experiences increase

because you try new things, your Venn diagram gets bigger and you'll find more overlap

than you expected, I think.

And if you're willing to do the thing you wouldn't have chosen, but you're doing it because

you're doing it with the person you care about, then you say, you know what, that was

all right.

You know, you can have fun doing anything together if you know how to get along.

But how much have your Venn diagrams expanded over the years?

Because right now I can tell by talking to you that you guys have a lot of alignment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know about you.

But I think, you know, just with the Adventure Retired Podcast, when we talk to these people

from all over the world and we hear other people's adventure for like, okay, oh, that sounds

like fun, you know.

Our bucket list keeps going.

It does.

Like, I mean, I would like to do a hot air balloon ride in Africa.

Wow.

But you know, then I'm thinking, okay, I guess I'll do a hot air ride in Iowa.

I mean, I don't, where we are now, I'm just going to do a hot air ride, you know, a hot

air balloon.

Yeah.

I mean, there's just, there's a lot of things that we still want to do.

Yeah.

Not slowing down yet.

What was it?

Our friend said, don't sit too soon.

Yeah.

Don't sit too soon.

Don't sit too soon.

Well, one thing that I heard from a, this was a travel expert who was writing books on

helping people to get out and do things, which your experts at it now because you've done

so much of it.

But what she said was, never have one trip on the calendar.

You always have to have two.

Oh, yeah.

Kurt has four or five.

Yes.

Well, good for you, Kurt.

But it gives you something to look forward to.

So when you finish the one, I mean, people have adventure withdrawals, you know, it's

like, oh, man, I work so hard to do this.

And now it's over.

Now what?

I know, right?

It's so good to know.

Oh, and we're going to Africa, which you just mentioned.

You are going to Africa, right?

What is that trip about?

Oh, that was, that was a neat, that's another guest.

Yeah, that's a guest off on our podcast.

She's a former teacher.

Now she travels with teachers and lines him up.

Yeah, she was had this Africa trip planned and only seven.

What was 17 people were going to do?

So we signed up.

Wow.

It's actually worth through Colette.

So it's going to be a nice, I mean, that's not a cheap travel company.

Yeah.

It's two weeks.

Yeah, it's, yeah, it's two weeks.

And yeah, it's, it's going to be fun going and doing this safaris

and seeing the falls and Victoria falls.

And yeah, I think it'll be neat.

Yeah.

Yeah, that'll be fantastic.

Have you been to Africa before?

Well, we went to Morocco.

When we were in Spain, we wanted to jump across the Gibraltar

and go to Morocco.

And so our foreign exchange daughter, who we were staying with,

her parents said, well, can we go?

And like, you know, they've lived there in southern Spain their whole life,

but they'd never been to Africa, right?

Wow.

OK.

So we did.

And we had a blast.

We were just there for an afternoon, but we were, you know, feet down on the continent.

So.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah.

Well, that's fun.

So when are you going to Africa?

June July.

Yeah, June.

Yeah.

June last week, June first week of July.

I went to Africa 32 years ago and fell in love with it.

And I'm going back in three weeks.

Oh, fine.

What?

Yeah.

So by the time this episode comes out, I will have already been, probably.

So.

And where are you going?

I'm going to Tanzania.

OK.

There are a group of gentlemen who are climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

And the ages range from about 45 to 72.

They're 15 of us.

Oh, fun.

And so we're going to be trudging up the mountain to 1943, 1949, whatever it is,

1993, something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's going to be quite the experience.

And everyone is curious if they can do it or not.

Right.

You know, we all have our thing.

Yeah, that's one of those adventures, kind of like the latter, the sacred valley.

Once you get into it, you don't want to say I'm done, and not make the whole thing.

So you just one foot after the other?

The adrenaline takes a little bit.

Yeah.

It's like running.

You know, when I used to be, he hates to run, but I used to run.

You know, when you get to like, if you're doing like a half marathon, you get to those

last three miles or even a full mirror, then it's the adrenaline.

You know, you're, you're spent, but man, you know, you could see the end.

Right.

And I think a lot of adventures that are physical, it's like that when you see yourself

at the end and just keep that in mind.

You'll be fine.

Kilimanjaro would be cool.

Yeah, I would.

Yeah.

I saw Kilimanjaro from Kenya, actually, when I, you know, on my first trip, I saw it

off on the horizon, and I said, I'll be back.

Right.

I never expected it would be, you know, 32 years later, but that's the way it earned out.

And where do those years go, you know?

Yeah.

You know, I have had so much fun during those years.

If I think about it, I, I'm just going to give an example, and I hope everyone listening

will bear with me here, but I think that it's worthwhile to do this.

It was, it was fall and the snow starting to fly.

And I remember, it was a few years ago, and I thought, man, I just didn't get a summer

this year.

I just didn't do the things.

And so I started thinking about what did I do?

And I listed all the adventures that we had done, and I thought, no, I'm wrong.

I had a fantastic summer, I can't believe what we did, you know, it's easy to, to not

take time to remember.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if you do take time to remember, I think it makes you grateful.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, wow.

No, we did do the things.

I, I, not done for the summer, but, you know, and that's where the 32 years went, Cindy,

I, I had so much fun with my family doing the things.

And for us, it was backpacking in 14 years, a lot.

Right.

We did some travel as a family.

We did rock climbing and got deep into mountain biking.

My son's all raced on the high school teams and just when I started thinking about all

the camping trips, all the mountain biking, all of the, you know, and then in the winter

time, we keep doing the mountain airing in the winter time.

Yeah.

We, you know, we do alpine touring skiing and ski at the resort and cross country ski

and we go winter backpacking.

And I just thought, man, it's been 30 years just packed full of amazing experiences.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's what, you know, what we told you about, we climbed the sky lodge.

Two other things there on that same trip, we went to the Galapagos Islands and then to

Easter Island.

Yeah.

And those were amazing places too.

Not so much adventure, but Easter Island just getting to a place where very, very few

people go and seeing the large Moai statues.

So cool.

And Galapagos Islands, as a former biology teacher of part of my career, seeing the giant

tortoises was just phenomenal.

Yeah.

And, you know, to tell all your listeners to the older you get, the faster it goes.

I mean, I look back and I think I don't even remember that.

I don't remember that year at all.

I don't, okay, the year after we got married, you know, I don't remember one thing about

that, you know.

It just life goes so fast and the older you are, it's like, before you know it's Christmas,

before you know it, it's summer, before it's just, it goes fast.

Yeah.

Yeah, we just took our Christmas tree down and now I'm putting one back up again.

Exactly.

I know.

I'm like, wait a minute.

I just took this down.

It's like making the bed.

Yeah.

It is.

It's going to be Christmas next year.

Just leave it there.

Well, it'll be a blanket.

That way we don't have to redecorate.

Right.

Well part of what makes it not go so fast and he is taking the time to remember.

Yeah.

I think.

Yeah.

To take it and actually get out a piece of paper and write it down.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Quick photo book online.

I haven't.

I'm trying to talk him into when we come back from Texas in March to go to April if the

Eagles are still playing in the dome in Las Vegas because he doesn't like Las Vegas and

it's okay.

I mean, we don't gamble or anything like that.

You do when you lose.

20 bucks.

Okay.

Anyway, I want to go.

I want to go see them, you know, and I keep thinking I was thinking, you know, I just

haven't seen that many great concerts, you know, and then I did what you said.

I listed down who I've seen and my page just kept getting large and I'm like, oh, yeah,

I saw.

I saw ZZ top.

All right.

All right.

I saw.

I'm thinking all of these people I've seen.

I think, well, I haven't seen the Eagles.

I want to see the Eagles.

You know, and well, it's interesting that you said the sphere, Kurt, we're on the same page.

The Kurt's agree.

I would pay money not to go to Las Vegas, but when they built the sphere, I thought, huh,

I would love to see a really great concert.

I know.

I know.

That might be worth it.

Yeah.

That might be worth it.

And they said there's not a bad seat in the house.

Yeah.

A cheap seat either.

But once in a lifetime thing, you know, you don't have to ever go back to that again,

but you get to see it.

And I think that would be cool.

That's amazing.

I read a few of the stats on it when I first heard about it.

And they do things like they have technology that focuses the sound on each individual seat.

Wow.

Amazing.

So it's actually directionalized sound.

And so there really is not a bad seat in the house.

Yeah.

It's like everybody has the best seat in the venue.

Wow.

That's true.

You're just adding to it right there.

I think it's it.

You see?

And then the screens all around you and you're just like, oh, I can't imagine.

I can't either.

It looks amazing.

It does.

Yeah.

You don't have to leave the states to see something cool.

Oh, yeah.

You can do things right here in America that is just amazing.

Right.

You know, to be fair to the great folks in Las Vegas, there's a lot more to Las Vegas

than the strip.

That's right.

And such great adventure sports that you can do in the area and better.

A fact, Alex Honald lives there and he was saying that he loves it because world

class rock climbing is so close, right?

He can just get to any of it.

So we shouldn't shortchange Las Vegas just because of one six block, 10 block long section

of town.

Yeah.

If you don't gamble, if you're not that type of person, and what I just don't like

is the smoke.

You know, all those every casino you go to is smokey and I don't like that.

Look back to these islands.

I want to go back to the islands.

You did Machu Picchu Easter Island in the Galapagos and I thought, OK, there's three things

that a lot of people think about doing.

They're all different.

But I was curious, is there one that stood out?

You're like, absolutely, you got to do that one that was better than the others or they

all three worth doing or how do you compare these things?

They're not close to each other, but I think, you know, it depends on the person, but

all three of them.

Yeah.

All three.

The UI out there at East dryland is just majestic.

And that island itself is amazing, it's small.

There's not, you don't see trash anywhere.

Right.

It is spotless.

Yeah.

And a lot of pride.

Beautiful.

And, you know, pride in the people and all that.

It was just, it was phenomenal seeing that and hearing the history of it.

And the Galapagos, that was gorgeous too.

Yeah.

When you see a pasture that has cows out in it and then four or five of these giant tortoises

just walking around free, you know, just free room and they tell us, we like, how do they

get out of the pasture?

Well, the farmers will keep the top two barbed wire fences tight and the bottom one is

loose.

So the tortoise can walk up to it and then it goes over them.

So they'll stay in and the tortoises can roam as they want.

And it's just, oh, that's something.

And being up close to those tortoises is just phenomenal.

Yeah.

And some of the oldest living things on earth as far as animals are concerned.

Yeah.

And we, you know, people think about the tortoises.

We didn't realize, you know, there's the Galapagos is like 19 islands and each island had

its own tortoise.

It's own species.

Wow.

Yeah.

And I didn't see that.

That's something we didn't know.

And they're different.

They look different.

They're different.

And it's just so cool.

They've been wonderful breeding programs too.

Yeah.

They are of the tortoises because they got some out of the, out of the 15 or 18 species.

There's a couple that are extinct because people would eat them and stuff like that, you

know, ships would stop and, but now they're rejuvenating the population.

It was cool.

Well, and then Easter Island, that's way down south.

I mean, that is way down there.

Yeah.

And it's all kind of by itself too.

Yeah.

It's 2,000 miles off the coast.

We flew into Santiago, Chile and then you catch another plane 2,000 miles straight out

into the ocean.

Wow.

And if people we met from Chile there, they said, you know, this is beautiful here, but

you need to go to southern Chile, you know, and we want to do that something, go down

and go.

She looks really long.

Yeah.

They said, it's just gorgeous.

And you know, we don't, and here in America, you don't see much about those countries and

learn much about them.

And I want to go back and see Uruguay and those Patagonia, those would be beautiful places

to visit, I think.

That was part of the adventure of that trip was we get all the way to Santiago and then

clear out to Easter Island.

And I look at my Apple Air Tags and our suitcase was in Atlanta, Georgia.

It's like half a world away, you know, and I talked to some people at the airport there

in Hangaro.

Hangaro.

Yeah.

Hangaro.

Hangaro.

And the guy worked on it and he's up there there, I said, okay, how do we get him here?

And through a lot of help, he got him back and to our hotel the next day.

Not bad.

No, that was amazing.

We usually just travel with our black holes, you know, and so we carry on.

But this time we actually had a suitcase free, so we thought what was to a suitcase, you

know.

And I was smart.

Should have done the carry on.

Yeah.

I was smart in my carry on.

I had a change of clothes, but you had forgotten to do that.

I can learn underwear for days on it, doesn't matter.

So the question I have is for everyone who's listening.

There are people out there who haven't done a lot of travel.

And I feel like I'm one of those people, even though I know it's not true if I make

that list, Cindy.

But I feel like I've not traveled in a while.

And you start to get this feeling like, well, what about the language barrier?

What if the food doesn't work for me, you know, what are the facilities going to be

like?

It's easy to start talking yourself out of it.

And I think more so as we age, we get stuck in our way sometimes if we're not careful.

So you've been doing a lot of travel.

What advice do you give to people who are starting to wonder if it's worth it?

Don't worry about it.

I mean, luckily, about wherever we go, people speak some sort of English, whether it's

good or bad, because we don't speak their language, but people are amazing.

And just as later on your phone, yeah, you got Google translate if you get desperate.

But people are just so nice.

Yeah.

I mean, everywhere we've gone, because we were in Southeast Asia, I don't know, a year ago

or something like that.

And people are just so dog on nice.

And I think too, you plan, plan a little bit for problems.

So like, you know, I am like the, in my carry on, I have the diarrhea medicine.

I have all kinds of little things that you plan for, okay, well, what happens if this happens?

Well, okay.

I take some emotive.

I don't know what happens.

I have some granola bars along with me, I have food allergy, so I have to be really careful

everywhere I go that I don't eat anything with red dye because I have allergic to that.

And I've been into, I mean, I was in the hospital in Iceland because of it, you know, I mean,

you just, you got to kind of roll with the punches, but I guess don't be a person that lets

it get under your nerves and then you're grouchy because there's nothing like a grouchy

traveler.

I mean.

What's the point?

I am, every once in a while, you'll see somebody like that and they're just grouchy and I'm

thinking, you know, yeah, no, it's, it's, there's too much beauty and too much fun.

Get over it, you know, don't be a grouchy traveler.

People respond, and I tell this to Kurt because sometimes he gets frustrated in the airports.

I'm like, people respond to a smile and a thank you so much better than when you're yelling

at him.

Now, or when you're upset about something, not that he does yell or anything like that,

I am, I'm a very positive type of person anyway and, you know, okay, so we're here five

hours extra.

Let's look, walk around, you know, let's get our 10,000 steps here, you know, and, you know,

we took my mother to Italy one time and the trains in Italy are notorious for not running

on schedule or going on strike and every time that would happen, my mom said, oh, it's

just another adventure.

You get to learn that.

There you go.

It was wonderful.

It was wonderful.

I expect that things won't go as you expect.

Then it makes for a better trip.

It's like I'm here to experience the experience, yeah, right?

And people you hear this all the time, but I think it's such a great thing.

You know, if an airplane takes off from Seattle and wants to go to Miami, it's never on

course that entire flight.

It's constantly correcting, so it eventually gets to Miami, but it's never perfectly

on course.

It's the course corrections that get it there.

And when we think of travel as it's a series of course corrections, it's an adventure of

experiences.

Good point.

Yeah.

And I think we enjoy it more that way.

Yeah.

And you learn, you know, I think every, every trip that we've gone on has been a learning

thing.

And it's wonderful to learn at any age and, you know, even if you just, if you look

and find one positive thing, it's worth it.

That's cool.

So the name of your podcast again, adventure retired, all one word, the, the, the

RE at the end of adventure is the first part of retired.

So like I said, it's adventure tired, if you can't remember, no, I think that's great.

It's a fun name.

So people can hear more about your adventures and other people's adventures there.

And I love that.

Yeah.

So I'm sure.

But if you learn places you want to go, and it's not just about travel.

It's also about other things, you know, caregiving, hobbies, and whatever.

Like we just, the one that released yesterday Lady was a big city lawyer, Chicago, New

York, Washington DC and all that.

And once you got out of law, she's now running or working in an art studio in small town

Iowa.

And.

yeah that's her second her second act so to speak but you know she's doing

something and that's great that's really you know life

itself is the adventure you have to remember that

yeah exactly that's true exactly every day is an adventure

especially her this year is 40 years for us being married

yeah congratulations that's great it's been a

I don't remember the first 30 but yeah maybe that's a

reason that's a good thing probably maybe it's time to get out the paper and

start writing it down again well life is amazing life is

amazing and let's finish up with this one I want to hear from each of you

what is a life well lived this is for the 20

somethings out there who are trying to answer that question for

themselves you've got 40 years on these people

what is a life well lived I think a life for me a life well lived

is choosing a partner if you decide that's the route you want to go

that you can trust and will be there to help you when you struggle and

push you into something that you might have to think about before you do it

but having a partner that pushes you but still supports you all the way

yeah yeah I'm all about family we have two daughters

that I just I see why people have 10 15 kids I love my kids so much

you know and to see them happy and going through life and having their own

little adventures that's just everything for me

yeah hmm that's great answer people want to hear some people I don't want

kids but well and that's okay I think it's you don't have to want kids you

you have to be true to yourself and just your choice do yeah do what makes you

happy but also realize that sometimes you have to wait for that you have to

earn it or you have to work for it and that's that's life and that makes it

sweeter it really does that delayed gratification I don't care what it is

whether it's a two thousand dollar purse or a tattoo or a trip to

Antarctica or you know whatever is that you want

right now if you could just delay it for half a year and work for it more

it's gonna make it sweeter that's true that's great well thank you so much for

sharing all of this with us I appreciate it and I mean you're encouraging me

you're encouraging me to do more to get out there and do more because

those life experiences are what it's about memories are worth more than gold

you bet that's about the only thing you you can keep when you die I think

it's your memory I tell that to curl it's you know

because we we did well and I said you know we can spend the money now or our

girls get to do it okay let's let's spend the money and yeah

yeah still want to help them out too a little bit but you know hey

I you know let's let's let's live our life too oh we are we are yeah well good

for you thank you for your time today Cindy and her appreciate it yeah it's

fun I'm a little bit envious I have to say it sounds like such an incredible

life yep so you sound like you're rocking it too though with your camping and

your mountaineering and everything yeah yeah Africa oh well hey I I believe in

the the close-at-home adventures and of course I made my home where the

adventure was I wanted to do that also helps a ton yeah that helps a ton

you can have it enters in your own backyard that's what you always say

absolutely yep well if you ever come to Colorado stop in

I'm gonna have a adventure around here sounds good okay for everyone out there

plan ahead a little bit have big dreams dream more than one thing at a time

but do get out there and have some fun that's yeah that's good advice great