Our Solo Excursions

[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I'm link and I'm Rhett this week at the round table of dim lighting we're gonna be catching up with one another about some recent solo outings that we had some solo weekend's huh we've been holding on to these stories for as we do like for a number of days oh yeah and so we're gonna we're gonna I'm gonna share my experience of going out into a weird place in the California badlands bad land out in the desert with just me I wasn't alone cuz it took Jade but I was you did I was to know that I did not take any of my human companions family members or friends and then you're gonna give me the story of you going into where that what Badlands did you go in I went to the good lands I went to the Central Coast of California so maybe there's some contrast in our story yeah and I think there may be I didn't take my dog he didn't my dog's a little bit more of a handful but anyway we had some experiences there I we don't know any details of what happened to one another but we know the place the places that we went the kinds of things that we did right I actually had to make myself notes of this one thing that happened to me because when it happened to me it was so ridiculous I was like I have to immediately write this down so I wrote it down and then I just went back through what I wrote down and made notes for myself so I can give you the details of what happened to me okay that's the kind of thing we've got in store yeah I and I just a teaser for me I feel like there there were more than one point when did that sentence that wasn't grammatically you would say there was more than one point there were more than one point points there were multiple points in my experience where I said out loud in biscuits too for no one to hear what I'm just gonna say that's a that's a question that you want to be asking yourself quite a bit because the sign of things that you're doing something right you know and we decided to go on not to go on a trip together so we'd have some to talk about Anspach yes no that's not that's not really the case I mean it's so hard to have an opportunity we've never have an opportunity for solo excursions but because our plan I'm gonna tell him so what I just I mean our plan our planned trip to go to India it didn't work out you know just full disclosure we were going to travel to India and do a week's worth of shows to wrap up the season a good mythical morning and the logistics didn't work out I mean it just didn't it just didn't work out you got to get certain paperwork in a certain amount of time and it just didn't come together and we were very bummed but so it that was gonna be like a week and a half trip there wasn't our fault though I do want to say oh yeah yeah it wasn't our fault we basically it really wasn't anybody's physically weren't let in the country to do what we wanted to do we didn't get to we didn't get the visa that you need to go and make videos in India we didn't get rejected it just we never heard back right in the amount of time that we needed it in order to do it we were trying to do it all in the right way you know as opposed to just going over there and just starting filming so we do still have a dream of going somewhere outside of the United States in order to produce a show on the road you know produce it like a week's worth of good mythical morning I mean it was I I did not anticipate how disappointed I was gonna feel when we knew that it wasn't gonna happen cuz it was gonna be a big surprise for you know all the mythical beasts and now it's just something that that's just something you said I hope you're okay with saying it but I'm fine with it it's just it's just all negative it's just a disappointment to bring it up makes me want to cry a little bit but we'll go somewhere but you know what we have the intention to travel with the show at some point and everything was kind of lighting up and then it fell through and because we were going to be gone we you know Kristi and Jesse planned a weekend away and then with a we had childcare arranged for all of our kids so but I've been planning then we were left with this weekend that like when we were gonna be in India now it's like well my kids are gonna be at home but there's childcare so that means I gotta get out it I gotta take advantage it was it was more calculated on my part cuz I've actually been planning a solo trip and I'm playing another week-long solo trip probably during the summer just well just heads up just tell me when that week is I don't I mean I want in maybe not week long but we'll talk about what happened to us and then we'll decide whether or not that's a good idea you need to do it again yeah but before we get into that I just feel like I have to briefly address something you know first of all shout out to red MC on Twitter if you follow me on Twitter you already know this that I have begun to tweet about fortnight yes I've become that guy you can hate me if you want line up I think it's actually get in line is what you're supposed to say like you're like is that what you're your tweet that's what you're tweeting about only no so let me give you a little background on this of course my kids play for tonight because their children in America and are just children in the world in 2018 right so they have an Xbox or a PC or whatever you can play it on and they play it that makes you feel better about your your kids a dick and the fortnight and that you can say it that way my son Lincoln is also plays more as I guarantee he's played more games than my son yeah he's he's better yeah I'm sure he is I'm sure he's better than me too so he's pretty obsessed um I did I'm not I'm not a gamer I've never really been a gamer the only system that I ever owned was the the the very first Nintendo system in Sega at the same time that was a great great year and but I fell off of the whole gaming thing and then I'm done like I've talked about on the show I've done a little bit of mobile gaming but I see the kids and they're doing the first-person shooter games and they they're the way the controller is happening and they're aiming and every time I've tried to step into the situation I feel like someone stepping in like all of a sudden so you you play yeah I'm like on a ballet stay and I have got no training and I'm just an idiot and a leotard look at that guy's bulge you know just really just embarrassing situation that's how I feel when I'm playing these games exposed and I'm horrible at him I die instantly I did a little bit of that Star Wars game when it came out which is awesome Battlefront and I got killed so much and I hated myself for playing it but then fortnight rolls around everybody's talking about it Drake is playing it yeah you know and I'm like I just feel like I am at a tipping point maybe the tipping point is I'm at a decision point in my life as a 40 year old man where I can make a decision to shut it down and just say I am NOT going to be part like as you get older you see society moving forward and they're adapting and they're enjoying things and they're doing things and then at some point you get to an age where you're like that is not going to be for me like I'm checking out of that I'm not going to be into that type of music I'm not going to seek to understand that type of clothing you begin checking out and my theory is I as you begin you're already slowly dying basically right after you're born but you begin to accelerate the process of dying the more you begin checking out from the things that youth are doing in the brain that's my theory yeah it's always like I have to figure out how to play this game in a way that could be somewhat enjoyable as opposed to just sitting there dying over and over again but in my quest to somehow that's what happened you played the game and you just died repeatedly like that Tom Cruise movie without killing anyone I'm sorry that Emily Blunt movie without killing anyone because dying is kind of the point of fortnight unless you're the last person to win which that will probably never happen to me but the thing is is that most people who die all the time are also killing other people all the time and I'm not I'm just dying over and over and over and over and over and over and over and again and so I had died like 25 30 times in a row and just thought there was no hope I thought you just had to build a fort before the storm hit like those are the things that I understand I know that there shoot involved but that's just when people are trying to tear down your fort before the storm hits the storm is an ingenious tactic I was joking hon I know what it is to get you to fight Lincoln that's that's the only way I can connect with my son is to talk about his fort nightclub well you should talk about it in a way that makes sense with the youth I was making a joke I didn't understand what was funny about it yeah okay so I am in the midst of dying multiple times and then I'm like I'm gonna tweet about this I don't tweet a lot but I was like I think I got a tweet that might be you know it's some relevancy I'm gonna hashtag fortnight I'm gonna be that guy oh you did hashtag fortnight and I tweeted how many times you have to die in hashtag fortnight before you're actually dead inside ooh pretty good tweet you know gives the joke I made earlier you didn't get right and I I tweet that and then the very next day I I'm back on I'm back on Twitter and I had learned about this ninja guy the ninja his name isn't his his gamertag is ninja and he's like the top of the gaming world you know he's he's he's gaming it up with Drake and famous DJs etc that's when I heard about him and I mean this guy's huge right now and so I might I see him pop up on Twitter I'm like I know who that guy is with the blue hair yeah yeah he's the Beaufort 9 guy follow him oh he's got blue hair too yeah well he's done different things with this here I I followed him I follow him I finally went like 11:30 at night you know after like after like a fortnight session okay you were grinding grinding on fortnight I did say by that time I killed two people oh 52 52 attempts killed two people you're a murderer and he immediately follows me back because you don't see on the verified no he's got one of those accounts where he just Auto follows you back and then I go to his accountant money he's got like almost two million followers he's only following like 800 people I think this is a legit follow and then I realized that he has replied to my tweet before tonight what directly to me so I'm like Walker he says I can't remember what he said exactly well just how old is this guy by the way in his twenties he's married but he's in his 20s okay he said just not a child just one more time and my answer to my tweet yeah cuz that's the mentality what's your tag what's your tag first of all I was like what is my tag what does that mean that was the first question that I had you know that's how much of a new buy I hope that wasn't your next week so I don't remember what I said back to him but something about I'm just I'm horrible I'm worse at the game than newborn baby I actually then tweeted my tag back to him but then somebody was like DM next time I was like oh DM right now delete tweet took my tag off because I don't know anything about what I'm doing I'm again I'm like a man in a leotard just walking around exposing himself yeah I remember and so I retweet it I tweet back at him long story short big again I mean and I had been in a DM Twitter conversation with in the Ninja himself hey this is the like this is like having a conversation about basketball with LeBron himself you know what I'm saying this is the keys are the kinds of things that are happening on the red MC Twitter oh wow and I am I I'm not gonna tell you what we talked about okay I mean but I will say in one sense it's not actually an exaggeration the analogy you made because he's that good at this game according to what Lincoln tells me it's amazing the dude is I mean he's he's a professional gamer but it's almost an understatement in terms of like it really is phenomenal to watch it's like I've never watched let's play videos and because I haven't played any of the games but now when you play the game Vinick I understand the dynamics of the game it's just like you play a little bit of basketball or you play a little bit of golf and people are like why do you enjoy watching golf well because I've played a lot of golf and so I can you know it looks like just some lazy fat dudes walk but the hitting balls around but when you understand how difficult it is you become you admire it and you want to watch but what is the conversation the DM conversation the DM conversation is about some plans that we're making what are just planning some things I don't want to disclose that don't know if the plans will come to fruition but you know we're just yes my bud ninja and I just talking on Twitter like we do DMing that's what you do with your friends on Twitter Thank You me plants making plans however let me just say you're involved in this because I also I started having fortnight dreams and I had a dream first of all weird stuff started happening I there's a house that's being constructed in my neighborhood and it's just wood frames right now and I saw it and I thought for it it's like that's happen are the forts in your brain is turning a kid mush yeah I'm turning into a youth I believe I found the Fountain of Youth yeah you know I'm saying are you making you smarter when you begin looking at look at a house and it becomes a fort the youth it's like it's like it's like I've hooked up my boys building a fort across the street dirt it's like our house son I've hooked up an IV directly to a teenager and I'm getting their blood and it's coursing through my veins it's causing some weird things to happen but what's happening to the team the teen is slowly dying I know and you don't care because it's the first-person shooter and you know what those but it was your conscience you're in a fight when one of my fortnight dreams oh yeah something won't for reason for some reason am i jumping around trying not to get you know it wasn't in the game of fortnight you jump yeah you look like you kind of look a little stupid when you do the jumping you're not jumping because you're not in the game me and you have assembled a large group of people and we're doing a seminar okay about fortnight and you're walking in and the dream you walk in and the dream of my you know I whispered to him like just make something up and then we begin mmm I don't remember the specifics of what we said but yeah I can do that we had a fortnight seminar so maybe that's maybe that's what I'm on the road to you know I ninjas my best friend on Twitter was DMing me constantly and constantly yeah once he did it once but maybe you'll do it again and then I'm playing as I as I see fit as it into my schedule which is not a lot but not incredibly busy right now so I'm actually able to do a little bit and then I'm having dreams about it maybe we'll have a seminar you know I'm hooked up to the youth I feel like I kind of feel like a new man I could tell something was different about you that you've yeah kind of like a little flair getting a little on my sweatshirt pubescent hormonal awkwardness you can always grind like you smell me when I come in the room voice cracking kind of a thing you smell like I've been running yeah teens always smell like they've been running facial features kind of out of proportion yeah a little bit of awkwardness gods it's in weird places well in one sense my my journey into solidarity was is in stark contrast maybe both of ours to to being a fortnight but in some ways it's maybe I had some of the same feelings well I can't wait to hear about it but let's take a short break to remind everybody that you can get the shirt that link is wearing not the exact mythical best but a shirt that is designed exactly like that at mythical dot store this is this is one of my favorite pieces of merch that we three-quarter length sleeves he got this called baseball because because the baseball players they need 3/4 lengths but they need the forum to be exposed I don't know why do you know the theory I thought this is like rec softball shirt I don't know that professional is actually wear these but if you don't like your sleeves this long you want a shorter we got plenty of those too but the reason you want your elbows covered is for sliding headfirst mythical dot store the place to equip yourself with things you want thank you for supporting intern attainment for all types of stuff even Cologne I'm serious we got that seriously okay link tell us about your time as with many things you mentioned you were taking a solo trip and I didn't know if my feeling should be hurt because I'm like well okay so that's that's the nice way of saying I'm not invited oh come on okay so then I'm like I gotta come up with something but we had talked you know we we dedicated a chapter of the book to isolate yourself with yourself yeah it's it's an aspect of mythicality - is an opportunity to rejuvenate potentially to reflect - you might use the term recenter so my feelings were not hurt it was I was like yes you're exactly right the this I can I can do anything I could go anywhere and Reading Rainbow I'm gonna do that and you know I thought about your experience out in the desert alone and I had not had one of those yet mmm sounds like I was immediately thinking this is your first weekend alone my desert getting married my desert solo experience it like going on I can't read on a solo trip trip yeah since that that's summer before I got married when I went to Nashville but I visit him a friend Josh a long time ago but he worked during the day so during the day I was so little right okay so we're talking a long time ago oh yeah 1999 mm-hmm so I was thinking about the desert and then I'm like well I don't know that after hearing your your story about the tent camping thing and like you kind of got freaked out and I mean you can read about it in the book I'm like well maybe maybe before I go total tent I'm gonna search Airbnb okay you know and then they have these things called experiences it's not just about places to stay now but they can give you stuff to do with with like Sherpas guides type situation and I thought maybe I won't sign up for those but I'll use it as like using the map as I can drive for a road trip and come up with something to do that's inspired by one of the experiences even though I don't won't sign up and then lo and behold I started I went to the map view and I started dragging it East and like kind of towards Joshua Tree got out towards where you went mm-hmm I've been wanting to go back to Joshua Tree and then the map view was really wide and there was nothing that popped up except all of a sudden one Airbnb popped up in the middle of nowhere and I zoomed in and I was like whoa this was this is past Joshua Tree this is past Palm Springs oh no that big body of water that's the frickin Salton Sea and it's past that Oh past that because we always always wanted to visit the salt and sea because it's like an abandoned getaway community and that was part of my solo trip the first time the Salton Sea oh you did go there yeah I didn't remember that part yeah on the way back I drove south stayed at there for like a couple hours okay did you end up going there and then the place that popped up when I zoomed in was just past that and I when i zoom I was like oh crap it's Slab City right I've heard of this place it's the type of thing that like vice will send one of their journalists out to the slab city and didn't we talk about it on the episode of Jim and we did yes it was it was like one of those list episodes back when we used to alternate telling like most isolated places on earth or something yeah and it was the history of slab city people tend to write about it in a way and maybe I don't remember how we talked about it on the show honestly but I they tend to like sensationalize it as a lawless community that's totally off the grid meaning off the electrical grid there was places with no laws that was the episode I don't know the title of it but it was places that are subject to laws which is not really true but claimed to be true by them so I'm like hold on if there's an Airbnb there amongst the slab errs because what it is is it is a place in the middle of the desert with no electricity no running water it's literally just a war war to military base very small that was abandoned by 1960-1961 they took everything off but they left the concrete slabs that they had poured to build their like I'll just say barracks just say it for lack of a better word and then because I researched the backstory in the sixties some some people came in to harvest creosote which i think is like I don't even know what it is it's the stuff that you put on light poles in order to preserve them there's a natural thing that you get out of there yeah so I thought was an oil by-product and the people who were out there getting it and whatever way they were getting it started camping there on these slabs and then some people just ended up staying there permanently and squatting on what was and is public land so it's not technically legal but ever since then there's been people who've gone out there and just squatted just lived yeah I mean you might be tempted to say it's a homeless commune and but I needed to find out for myself okay so I'm starting reading the reviews and it was like okay this is this is a super host as certified by Airbnb maybe I can fill start to feel a little bit of comfort here in in renting out for 30 bucks there what appears to me to be based on the pictures and abandoned in Mobile RV okay this sounds great you know me and RVs that is at that's honest lab as lab city or I'm near slabs and it turned out it was very near Slab City it was not in the middle of like the slab the slab errs community okay it was across the street from a huge art installation that alcohol that is called Salvation Mountain yep I'm going to tell you more about Salvation Mountain later but tourists will come through they'll see Salvation Mountain Oh take some pictures and front of this mountain which is crazy and then they'll leave mm-hmm they want they might drive through Slab City at a rapid pace and then get out it's not a tourist destination yeah now not typically an Airbnb experience either but I'm reading on the Airbnb and they're like okay it's people are leaving reviews and they're like cherry is so nice she will make you a vegan meal cherry cherry not Cherie but cherry sherry and her husband she on top of I don't know how to I said okay she was on top of it yeah but according to the reviews she's on top of things at it that's what I'm in series on top of things and oh you know sure she'll make you coffee and breakfast I'm like okay so I can go out here there's no there's no there's you're off the grid but somebody will make me breakfast is her husband's name able oh I love it already sherry enable yeah and he was very able and so okay I'm like you know what I think I'm gonna do this and so I clicked I was like you know what I would tend to walk away from my phone at that point be like I'm gonna think about this for another day and then I'm gonna find all these reasons not to go to slab city might you know what I'm just gonna clicking I'm gonna do it and then immediately like we were having a conversation and she accepted my request and boom I'm booked on the on the edge of slab city across the street from Salvation Mountain $30.00 you can never get back you're in now oh yeah the RV was painted red all over it like even the tires which were like shredded it was not you cannot drive this thing away so then I I leave in the three-hour drive ended up taking five hours coachella man and yeah cuz it was the same that was the second weekend at Coachella and I I it definitely didn't help the traffic so I'm I Drive past the north side of the Salton Sea which it is that is just crazy because did you get out did you stop not on the way in because the Sun was setting and I wanted to get to the RV before it got dark so I so I'm that part of the state is like a alien landscape it really is I mean the Salton Sea is is is the biggest lake in California and it's it was made by accident like a water overflow from the river and then the water is trapped in such a way that like the salt content was so high that it messed up the ecosystem that like certain times a year there's lots of fish that like just died on the shore and where they thought it would be this like waterskiing and like boating community with Sonny Bono if people just abandon it now there are there are still people who live there yeah which when I drove back through I went on the beach Jade and I went on the beach and then we drove through another little town Bombay Beach where they have power and running water that's good which at that point in my trip was revolutionary yeah after the two days that I spent outside of slab city so anyway I get to the RV it's just getting to be dark and boy I just I wasn't nervous I was just you know and then I pull in what does your phone work out here the phone does work okay wouldn't you feel better it made me feel a lot better and I did have one of those other like Lily I took one of Lily's like battery extender things like you can charge that up and it just gives you a second battery for your phone so again between the Airbnb reviews and the battery I felt a little bit better and when I pull in I realize oh it's not just one RV there's three here and as I pull in there's two women just one of them cheery um no and they're like waving mean they're waving at me like stop stop stop stop stop like don't don't drive any further and I like and I was like oh gosh I'm here and there's people there's freaking villagers already and so I stop it I'm like roll down the window I'm like um hi and they're like don't just don't drive any further because the sand you might get stuck stuck in the sand you I think you're okay where you are and so then I'm in a conversation so then I start walking over there and one woman had just arrived from Sweden and it met this other woman in San Diego I think and then they both found their way to to this RV to be my neighbor so chary and Abel rent three RVs yes smart why we're it 1-1 you can rent three yeah they all paint in different colors yep red white and then off whitish oh not much there that red white and blue the other woman the other woman had a had a sign hanging in front of her RV that said psychic readings five dollars in her on her RV on the the little fence in front of it so she's been there for a while turns out she had been there maybe two weeks but I guess she carries the sign wherever she goes yeah they're both very friendly they were drinking wine and eating steak I could smell the campfire and there's like a party they were very friendly and then I'm like well and it got totally dark by the time I was talking to him for 30 minutes and then I'm like well I got to get over here and then I finally get to the RV and this there there's no step to get into the RV but cherry and Abel are not at the RV no I haven't met them yet they just give you instructions only how to get in it I texted her and I said I'm here and she was to show up but she wasn't there yet and then I I mean I have some pictures I'll show you and for the video version I guess we can throw some of those up there but the step leading into the RV was a milk crate with a board almost twice as wide as the milk crate strapped on top of the milk crate and then printed on the sign printed on the board and like black paint and handwriting it says be careful oh yeah I mean and it you step too far to the left or the right you're gonna take a tumble but I couldn't help but wonder were they also referring to my entire entire experience but essentially and then it says carefully above that yeah on the on the oh it says careful and it has two L's they misspelled it well that means extra careful and then when you so then I go in the RV I took some pictures portraits of Jade well the next day there was a moment of solitude I got a little bored the only piece of artwork inside of the RV was this detailed eyeball bloodshot with blood tears coming out of it and when you look closely you realize oh great there's also a hand crawling out from the bottom eyelid yeah that's not disturbing at all when it's pitch-black and there's no light inside of this RV which was basically just like I said an abandoned RV that was it was very well swept you know it's and there was some bedding but no power no well they did have an LED like a solar charged LED light bulb that you could turn on which actually made it freakier so like and then I get in there I'm like okay these people are nice next-door but okay Jade we're in this together we could just stay in this RV for the next two days and not leave you know maybe we'll be okay I stayed in the RV that night and it got a little yeah a little scary but then cherry and Abel drove up in their car and they had they they had food for me they were very friendly and they said we're going into Slab City tonight because there's there's some musicians that are going to be performing so yeah they do that they're like oh there's a stage and then people bring their own chairs I've seen this on video and then so just people go up and perform with like a solar power PA system once they started playing I could hear it I couldn't see them but I could hear the sound coming from around the bend from in slabs video from my RV I ended up not going that first night I was like I'm gonna eat dinner and then you know how I just didn't settled I was getting settled you know I didn't feel like I don't want to go into town in the dark I did I'd rather rather see it in the light first yeah first night yeah the next morning I go to well Abel comes in his car and he's like I will lead you to my house and so I get in my car and I follow him we're just driving off the road into the desert just driving around this is to get breakfast because they provide that yeah we drive for about a mile like literally through the desert and you'll see and you start to see what at first - through the uneducated eye looks like piles of trash like huge mounds of garbage and then I was like oh we're gonna drive right past this pile of garbage and then we get closer and I would realize this is somebody's dwelling yeah and it's in it's in it's Hollow trash home it's pieced together in such a way as to construct shelter and boundaries and things on public land or they own this land public land yeah and so you realize it it's not trash is reclaimed scrap that's been used to build a home and that's what cherry and Abel live in and then we round another corner and I see like a whole compound of like hodgepodge of stuff like this one has a fence made out of pallets of wood and a couple of different structures one of which is two stories tall and there's like a parking area like with like rocks put down and like you drive it to it and there's a sign that says camp freedom and this is their compound then I go through the gate Jade now goes through the gate I close the gate behind me so she didn't run out into the desert and never come back to me and Abel's super friendly cheery super friendly older these people and late 20s what they're young okay I've not yes I was fishing older people yeah they are very tan people okay like very sun-baked I don't know they might you know she might have been well she might have been mid-30s you know I tend to think of myself as as like 28 so I tend to age everybody else down so but but not older definitely not older than us but I didn't have a toupee because you can't usually I definitely can't spot that spot a toupee he didn't have a to pick your - he's toupee blind and then I meet their five children what their five kids ranging in age from 13 to toddler well then I would have seen they're not in their 20s yeah that's what made me rethink that yeah but - but they did start early yeah and the kids were you know the younger kids were shy kind of names are they but the older kids I can't remember but it it wasn't anything like Jerry and Abel Rock no stilt no but that but the oldest the oldest daughter was very you know very nice and engaging she homeschools they homeschooled in there when I walk into like the what I'll call the corral that is like their front yard there's they have like a raised garden that they said the wind blew it over and they were trying to fix it and they're like growing some stuff and they have to haul in all their water and then there's there's a two-story structure made out of wooden pallets with them plywood put over it they explain this to me I mean cherry said hey we've got the only two-story dwelling in Slab City they had been there for many years like four and crazy so and then in front of the two-story structure was like a black mesh that they repurposed as like a sun block / flattened fly net what's it called mosquito net type situation and that was over a like queen sized bed which was basically sitting in front of the house so like their bedroom was just covered in a net in front of where everybody else lived and you know I they had television because I heard it and they have a generator they have they have solar power solar power solar power and then they she had taken and made like a pony wall around the side and so they had this like little courtyard area made out of Adobe mud with like old glass bottles stuck in it and then it was just a wall that then they had a table and I sat down there and ate my pancakes in my drink my coffee and talked to them and got just got her story but Sweden and San Diego they were there they weren't out there again super nice obviously you know I explained to them that I why what I was interested in and how I was fascinating I was just you know so I kind of got into a conversation with her and she said that yeah they bit they've they've been here for a while and they just made a decision that they wanted to live off the grid and you know homeschool their kids and it's a place where you can freely be yourself now cherry had a hint of what an accent like a British accent and I said where you from and she said Oregon yeah and I sense that I shouldn't ask any follow-up questions because she'd already said that like you can be anybody you want there's people who walk around town and they like and she wants to be slightly British that's what she wants I could be wrong maybe she lindsay lohan did that for a while maybe she did that maybe she I didn't ask her maybe she grew up in Oregon then she went to England or so wherever she got her act I'm at the time in the desert might do that to you I don't know give you a little give you a little flair it's not like I wanted to press her you know it's just like okay because that was the whole point it's like we're out here we can we can be who we want to be there's people in town who they get up every morning and she stands up and she starts doing the motions of I'm gonna put a bandana here I'm gonna put a bandana here I'm gonna paint this side of my face and I'm gonna put these bracelets here and I'm a walk around town this way and you're gonna call me Trog you know there's people like that in Slab City who just in every day it's different bandanas in different places different names she said it was the same like that was who he was Truong yeah she said that the land is owned by it's three different entities one of which is the California Teachers Association so that of course retired teachers can go there and Snowbird have you heard the term Snowbird it's when you go out into I mean I'm being overly specific go out to the desert in the winter for the winter months in order in your RV in order to like but in the summer they get out of there and she said we can't leave during the summer because someone will come and take over our compound and that's the law of the land you know it's like nobody owns it yes she wants she said we want to buy our land a couple of people have bought their their land like Salvation Mountain was bought and then now is being maintained so they stay through the summer yes and with these kids she said there's no what we call 90 days of Hell where it's a hundred and twenty degrees every day and she said the kids have a pool and I'm looking around and I don't see a pool so I think they had like reclaimed it was either hidden or it was reclaimed or me it was made out of a dope I'll tell you one thing those kids are tough because he is totally like normal kids those kids make it three yeah because humans are actually much more capable of environmental extremes as we've been talking about then we give ourselves credit for so I don't know these kids probably turned out better than our kids after talking to cherry I felt like I knew someone on the inside who was a pillar of the community she was gonna be about the community and about how everybody knows everybody and it's it became much less scary when I connected with chairing their family you know Carrie when you connect with cherry and Trog I'm interested when he comes into play and then I I never met him so it's non spoiler alert there's not something worth spoiling on that I'd like to skip to your story but I'll just say we can come back to my experience leaving their house with a little more confidence and then I went in I I went and saw some of the sites and then had an interesting second night okay what you know interestingly I will say that I think that there is a theme that is emerging here because the theme of my trip in one sense was you can't remember something that you don't do you know and I've been kind of instilling that in my kids we talked about this in the book of mythicality a little bit like I don't remember exactly the words that we use but essentially you can't tell a story about something that never happened you know what you can but it would be fiction yeah and you find yourself in different situations and when you were sitting there trying to make the decision to either go stay in this weird RV or not a lot most people and this is why it costs $30.00 yeah most people make the decision to not do that but having made the decision you've got this experience and you've got this story it's made your life richer I assume and that is kind of similar to what happened to me nod didn't stay in an RV I so I I wanted to go to a place where I could have access to hot springs because that is one of my favorite things and originally I was gonna go up all the way to almost Mammoth not yeah mammoth north of Bishop like five hours away mm-hmm up in the Sierra Nevada mountains to a place that piped in hot springs into like campsites but it was all taken up and I do want to do that at some place but at some point but I had a long list that a friend recommended like these are places that I've been that are cool in one of the places the places that the place that I chose was this the Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort and Spa in Avila Beach which is just north of Pismo I think I'm saying Avila right yes is there an H at the beginning it's a V ila okay and first of all I just swallowed part of my mustache first of all the drive up there now if you taste nothing if you take the five through the middle of the state it's Bowl ring it's tough but if you get on the west side of the state and you take the one and then there's like another Highway and through like once you get to Santa Barbara something cosmic happens like closet I honestly believe I don't honestly believe it because I'd not really ended that kind of thing like yeah I honestly believe venial II currently believe it for the sake of this story there is a feeling that the energy changes which may or may not be a thing okay like it's probably just the way that I'm interacting with my environment and the way the things changes but like Santa Barbara is beautiful and then you get north of Santa Barbara you go up this mountain road and you drive through this wine country through these little towns and it's this it looks like a Bob Ross painting it's these that's great so it wasn't burned because of the fires but I saw quite a bit of burned areas but I think I missed the vast majority because thousands and thousands of acres hundreds of thousands of acres were burned so I didn't see that so Santa Barbara looked great all around it okay then north of it was these amazing rolling hills with these pine of these oak trees kind of sparse oak trees you know there's this thing that like it looks like just it's just a grass covered mountain yes and then there's just a few trees on it there's just something like about a little state of nature that is exactly what I want you want to say I want to put a house on anyone sit under that tree right I want to deface the mountain with house and sit up there at night and enjoy my Mountain I know a guy who can make you one out of pallets good so I continue but I don't stop there I don't get out and build a house I go out to this resort and this is not like a super nice place this is I said Resort and Spa but this is a little bit of a like you're getting up there closer to Big Sur and you're kind of in a different way not the desert sort of hippie you're kind of getting into like NorCal yeah that part of the state and you're getting into it's a hippie sort of situation like to give you an example there's no room numbers at this place okay and what you are seeing things like cosmic energy yeah like I stayed in a room called virtue know what I'm saying listen as long as you can laugh a little bit at it we just stopped laughing a little bit then I started cuz they also had different sweets and the sweets next to mine were the mythical sweets I didn't stay in the mythical sweets that would have been serendipitous but I didn't I stayed in some other ones and virtue was my room and it's not a super nice place like I said I mean it's not like you're staying at the ritz-carlton or anything it's like kind of cheesy decorations inside and you know but it's got a good energy you know what I'm saying and they have pumped the water from the mineral springs the natural hot mineral springs there and to all these hot tubs that are on the hillside that you can come and like rent by the hour but and they've also put the water into hot tubs on the balconies balconies but they'd like the deck the back deck you had your own individual my own jacuzzi but it was like a you know it was like a jacuzzi that you might get from like Craigslist is kind of what it looked like like I wasn't like it was made to look like it was natural it was just like there's a plastic tub in the back that's got the water that we use in there it smells a little bit like sulfur but that's because it's got the minerals in it anyway I immediately got into it naked yes yeah yeah you were naked before you drove up right I said under my clothes and I am that's pretty cool I mean did you could you see the actual springs where they were being piped from no okay couldn't seek that out okay cuz you know you don't want to know you may not want to know the truth yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of PVC pipe around the property okay I didn't want to follow the PVC yeah usually make it I make it as a rule a personal rule don't follow the PVC so but I was very happy I was very pleased I was like this is gonna be a nice time I'm trying to discover some things about myself and but I but just a quick word a quick word about the beach area there so it's just amazing community that was this according to the history of town was this very small like podunk biker town is the way that it's described and like when you read about the history of it and there was some oil pumping that was happening that was leaching into the soil and they didn't know about it but when they discovered it Exxon discovered that they were screwing up the environment they were sued or whatever really and then they had to end up completely raising the town and digging down like 15 20 feet to get rid of all this oil slick raising the town they because it had leached into the soil you mean you mean wiping the town away getting rid of everything except a few structures bulldozing the town and then raising little Z dirt and then Oh raising with this and then building it back up and now it's like a cool beach town that is just these pristine cliffs on both sides and there's like piers that go out and there's all these sailboats I mean it was like one of the most beautiful places I've seen now they see these cool beaches are all up and down the coast but like Pismo Beach is like more populated and this one was just like special you know I like hiked up onto the hill one day and kind of look down over the beach thought I could have my house here but that's not it allowed anyway the really interesting thing happened to me the thing that happened to me that was like I'm gonna make a decision to do this I I wanted to just stay in my room they had a restaurant on site that would do room service I was kind of just staying in my room and eating things that were being brought to me I felt like a king only clothes when someone came to my room oh you know I'm just like a naked king I think most kings are naked most of the time and 7li have to do business I don't so I am I go to the yoga dome because on Saturday morning they had a yoga class like a hahaha yogurt I don't know what the word is did you do you need to drink some water Oh what ha ha ha ha ha I don't know it's a type of yoga ok I'm just familiar with yoga general night specific they had a dome it was a dome and I walked up as I'm walking up to the yoga class into the yoga dome a man about my age it's coming down and he's like it's pac-man and I'm like at that moment I was like imma look I was right on time I was like I'm gonna walk into a yoga class it's hard to find his spot I know I'm gonna be one of the few males in there that's just how yoga works and and he was leaving he is in the man he was like I left my girlfriend in there it's kind of her thing oh he's naming and I'm like um I'm gonna go in there I'm a big man I'm kind of hard to hide and I go in there and I look and it's just a sea of women and there looks to be no spots but they've spotted me at this point they see me and I'm like committed you know you froze like a deer and head like I'm so glad that I went in that's what you're about to learn the only space where no one has put a mat yet and we're talking like 30 to 40 women is there a stage is the front oh no so I'm like screw it I'm here there's one other guy an old guy he looks to be alone the girls seem to be in groups of tough types of groups you know yes yes what I wearing I'm wearing uh you know just to skin tight spandex yoga suit no I'm wearing you know a t-shirt and like dry fit shorts okay you know you could pick up basketball types yeah I'm ready for several different activities okay now they're all wearing their girl yoga stuff you know tight pants that kind of thing so I I go to the front I didn't know if this was like hippy flowy yoga people and interesting the structure talked about that I'll say that in a second okay I set up my mat in the front at this point I realize these women think I'm the instructor you shoot all right now they probably know I don't look like the instructor in them in the look I had on my face when I walked in the look of the confidence draining probably didn't say teacher but he go he went to the teacher he went to the teacher spot Oh No so then after I kind of I think I'm making it clear that I'm not the teacher when I don't say anything for a like a 30 second period did you face them or something no I faced the same direction they're facing but they're all facing my back and I'm like kind of sitting there probably face of getting a little red I don't know I'm embarrassed easily it's so so then an older woman could just feel their eyeballs burning in other your back like when's he gonna turn out and instruct us an older woman comes in oh she wasn't even in the room the instructor she comes in she has on a little bit of a flowy thing yes and like a it's tight underneath but then it's kind of flowed she's mean she's got like kind of wildly white hair that she is a seasoned yoga instructor you could totally see what she looked like in the 70s you know I'm saying yeah and she looks at me and she's like it is this the advanced class what she thought that I was the instructor for a different class because she knew that she was supposed to be there but she was confused that maybe because I was in the instructors anyway you were officially in the but I was off-center I didn't Center myself I quit and but it's a dome it's a circle so like they left this spot and I went just far into the circle as I could but I was committed at that point that was okay so that was her I'm gonna believe the best about this man and instead of saying sir you're in my spot this man in a v-neck and dry-fit Shore's footie sucks must be the indestructible the advanced class yeah there's no way I was like there's a but actually believed that I was like no because I knew she was thinking about me she said oh I thought maybe I come into the wrong class but okay it's just very crowded or okay let's get started this woman was a character and a half that she was like if you need to cast somebody to be a yoga instructor in like a movie you know what I'm saying like she she said we start and she's like everybody say oh like she's doing like in but she's kind of dancing a little bit and she's like shake your hips like she's really she's trying to get us all to loosen up mm-hmm she's she's doing these sort of sexy moves and getting all the ladies to do these sexy moves and I'm very glad that I'm in the front because if I'm in the back I'm like cuz that way everybody can see I'm the creep looking at all the booties moving and you don't wanna be that guy in the yoga class you know but in the front I'm like the six foot seven guy who's obviously has no idea what he's doing is not comfortable and I'm like doing the things I'm like gosh why am I here you were doing him so this she starts asking people like who is this who are you guys together like what groups are these turns out it was two big groups of women who were Bachelorette maybe three groups that were like Bachelorette weekends okay oh gosh so like girls who are like really making each other laugh happy to be together you know the way that goes we got it we got to put a sash on your head and take you around to the bars right but different we kind of different kind of weekend and and then the old dude who I don't know who he was with he could just be a creep but did she ask you you tall one no she was somebody was like it's bad bachelorette party or whatever I was like please don't ask me and I was like thinking about what I was gonna say again I was gonna be like I'm alone I just didn't know weekend of solitude I didn't have any words that I defined myself so far I ain't going great I just been naked this whole time until right now you know there's nothing that I could say at that moment that would have gone over well in the room thankfully she didn't it was a it was a middle school please don't call him me teacher kind of situation yes okay now she begins to do these chants and things and I'm participating and of course my voice is sticking out like a sore thumb because it's the octave lower than imagine you fading in this environment and then she begins to talk she's got a lot of ideas that I find questionable you know metaphysically speaking about the energies and manifesting flames on top of our heads and oh she we began to caress a flame on top of our heads I'm literally in a group of women caressing an invisible flame on top of my head like trying to get the thing to light I don't know what we were trying to do but I did it I was there for that then she breaks out a picture of the Mona Lisa not making any of this she's gonna do prop work she's like what do you notice about this woman this doesn't sound like yoga and oh it was though man and I was so happy by the end I got to tell you and so she holds up a picture of the Mona Lisa and she's like what do you notice about this and people are like answering in the class or whatever and but she's like the smile you see that there if some people might call it a smirk I don't like to use the word smirk it's a very gentle smile you can do a lot with that smile for this next exercise I want Lassalle to make this expression I once saw a man stand on his head without his hands for five minutes simply making this smile headstand she would make nut makeup she would tell of these stories of the things that had happened the supernatural things that had happened because of the smile the following things were also said by this woman during the yoga class I used to spend time with Tigers three times a day I wrote all this down because I wanted to remember were you taking notes during the yoga class no I took as soon as I got back here like scrambling for a minute I got back to my room I got naked then I started journaling no I used to spend time with three Tigers three times a day did she allow I hope there's a time opening the floor for questions once you start dropping Tigers I wish I got a few follow-up questions okay it's it gets better I used to ride an elephant and the elephant was happy turns out she was in the circus guys she was in the circus but she has a an apologetic for the circus that makes it okay that what they did to the animals I once saw a man put a tiger a horse and an elephant in the same cage because he understood their energy and at what point did you piece together oh she's a she's a carnie well that's not a carnie I don't know what she did at the circus I think she wrote an elephant well it was happy I'm sure but she and then the favorite one she said I was a mime for a while I thought once you go mime you stay with these like non sequiturs it just her spouting off she she would say things like I was a mine for a while and I find it helpful to do this with this move and then she starts doing like a mime thing I love this woman by the way I wish I knew her name I can't remember it I can probably go on the website and figure out she's one of the instructors but I actually love this woman but let me just continue because then at this point I'm growing more comfortable with what's happening but then she says now we're going to do some partner work you didn't bring a partner and and so I'm like what what does she mean by this and then she says okay find a partner and I immediately make eye contact with the old man because I'm like well surely he's my partner otherwise I'm gonna be just he's zeroed in on a woman of course he did he's already part of not with a woman before he's one of those things where everyone's getting into their thing I'm like and I turn around it's saying this is another middle school experience in the girl right next to me okay she's she has looked around trying to get away from having to be partner with me she understands what's going on yeah turns out this girl is the bride nobody wanted to partner with them right I got partnered with the bride from the bachelorette party why why didn't know why did all of her bachelorettes abandon her I think they thought you know what she got one last chance oh shoot bearded advanced yoga instructors in here let her have her fun before she gets married okay and what we did was not exactly fun so she begins the instructor begins to demonstrate what we're about to do it involved this is what you do with your partner you stand against back to back facing away from each other and then you bend over and your butt's touch and then you reach through and grab each other's arms and pull I put my butt up against this bride's but how tall was she cuz your butt is high I had to squat a little bit but there wasn't exactly great but - but contact she was getting a little bit low if you know what I mean it was you know I had to watch myself so I was trying to she's making it hard for you yeah probably not the correct making it difficult to go but - but right and so we're but - but we leaned down and I'm grat and I'm grabbing the girl reaching between your own legs and yeah I'm grabbing her forearms yeah forearms and then pulling and you know to her credit she really took it like a champ and you know wasn't like I'm trying to like say things maybe she was a mime once I'm like trying to you know take the edge off of the awkwardness a little bit but she's just going for it and and something going for it I mean she's like pulling you know she what's their conversation I was saying things like were you from I don't know why it's just like we're from like you were talking Sacramento I don't know where they're from Jose you were both looking through your legs at each other like we would do that and then we would get up and I'd like say something because I felt like I needed to break the tension a little bit yeah and then and then she was like I was like who's getting married she's like me I was like great congratulations and then so then then we had to interlock arms like swing dancers and dance around in a circle and I don't know what this yoga is not you got once you want to deal with freeze your body then you could do these kinds of things so now we're going around in a circle and I'm like I don't know why I said this but I was like you're having quite a weekend I just you know because it that's a bit self agreeing because it struck me that she's gonna tell this store this moment you're having with me right now is making your weekend and then but then she just said I'm really hungover so I think they'd had a good time the night before so she was about to vomit on you but I you know he was it was a beautiful experience but the class closed with she brought out this ball and she was I want you to hold this ball and we're going to dance by ourselves and we're gonna dance like these figures in this painting right here is another painting I think she's just picking random paintings in the room and just it's coming up with stuff potentially but she was like you see how this person is jumping up and kicking their legs out I want us to do that and she's like the music I'm going to play is a CD called yoga chance for women so as if I hadn't been made to feel a little bit out of place it was like we're gonna close this class by dancing to a CD called yoga chance for women she did look at me like say I'm sorry I don't have anything for men I was like okay was that a joke she was kind of being with her yoga chants the wrapper for women nope chance the rapper was not involved by the end of this class I am jumping up with joy kicking my legs out I might have hit the bride I don't know all I know is that at one point the instructor said he's got the hang of it she used me as an example also I was probably very difficult to not look at so you might as well brought more attention to it and I I gotta say though as soon as I quit dancing and she said class was over I rolled my map up my mat up and got out of there yeah I didn't want to have any conversations with anybody just a beeline for the exit yeah yes left the yoga dome went back to my room stripped off the clothes and began to journal and wrote this story so that's where the phrase when in dome comes from yep exactly you just go with it but you know what I'm so glad it happened to me and I actually went back so emotionally exhausted having heard that crazy story I actually went back to the yoga dome the next day for meditation and apparently they were doing gentle yoga leading into meditation and I came in right when they're starting meditation and I like interrupted the gentle yoga class which gentle yoga not as popular as say yoga because nobody was there was like three people but I didn't as I walked in they were all being very gentle and like wrapping up their class and she's like giving them aromatherapy and stuff my ankles cracked a lot you know and I walk and I'm like setting Mike stuff up and like my ankles are cracking a very self-conscious but I did eventually settle into a position and you know remained in silence for half an hour my time in the yoga's that guided that was guided my time in the yoga dome was so worth it not just did you take any pictures I kind of want to know what the yoga dome looks like mm-hmm you're like frolicking and then pulling out your phone and snapping and snapping I didn't take a picture of the yogurt oh yeah you can see what online I didn't take a picture of cherries house because I didn't think that was a pro gawking but I and when I came back after I wrote this story I wrote some you know some commentary just about how I was feeling about how you know obviously I made this decision to do this and I my intention in going into the yoga class was to as part of my weekend I'm trying to I'm trying to unwind I'm trying to learn more by myself um but it wasn't really to go and have the story to tell I'm glad that I've got the story to tell it makes it helps with the podcast which is great but I was like I don't as much as I am a very purpose-driven kind of guy and I kind of have goals and that kind of thing I still don't I don't like to make decisions to put myself in situations where I don't feel in control and I don't know what to do but I need to do more of that that's why I went even after my experience that's why I went back to the yogurt on the next day I was like I'm gonna go back I'm gonna who knows what's gonna happen but I'm kind of kind of embraced this the one thing that I didn't do that I talked about potentially doing is going to the restaurant eating in the restaurant by myself versus just having it brought to my room most anyone put my clothes on but also I was like I don't I'm not I'm ready for that level of you know exposure in a similar way I on the second night I'm skipping ahead did not decide to go into town even though after having dinner with cherry able all five of their kids and my neighbor Liz but not the Swedish woman she was gone they were eventually going into town and I said I might see you there and I thought there was a chance that I would go but then I didn't but I I did take many huge steps like you're saying to just put yourself out there and say you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna physically leave my comfort zone and and try to be open to self-reflection and I mean it sounds cheesy but it it is really what I think we were both trying to do which is like a level of self-discovery you know I was I was reading about how your personality or at least aspects of your personality are and now this is this was me reading while I was there during that day my first full day there after breakfast I went I went back to the well I saw some sights which I can tell you about but at one point I went back to the RV and I was reading about how you know what one up one way to understand personality is that when you're when you're young it's a it's a way to you build your personality in order to protect yourself and survive right and then as you get older and you may not need these certain protective layers and techniques for how you engage with the world in order to convince yourself that you're going to be able to develop and make it physically there's certain aspects of your personality you've built that then are are not arguably necessary and become a become a shell and a protective layer that you don't need anymore I know that you could live your life without that that's just one that's one way to look at aspects of your personality which may have negative impacts on you that you can begin to dismantle right mm-hmm so I was thinking about these things and you know that was kind of something that I was reflecting on it trying to put myself in a position to say okay I've got I've got time I've got silence where I can think about my true self and what AM what am i adding what what are in what ways is our is fear in a general sense driving the the way that I act and the thing the decisions I make and the decisions the things that I don't do you know so as an example like not you not going to the restaurant or me not going into town might for us have represented you know being fearful or the things that we did do like you go in into the dome even though the guy said turn back while you still have a chance right he almost got me to not go you know making a decision yeah you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna learn something from this experience and not run from it even though I may fear embarrassment by putting on a Mona Lisa smile and a jack-and-jill frolic or whatever whatever he was getting you to emulate I I would say that was a theme of of my self-reflection and I'll come back to that but so when I the next morning when I when I left the camp freedom compound I drove back around to Salvation Mountain which in the 70s there was a guy who had like he found Jesus okay and then he did he got so excited that he decided to go out to this very spot in the desert on this like big sand berm and start painting it mm-hmm like with Adobe cement and ultimately a crap-ton of latex paint and this guy lived out of his truck squatting in the desert around slab city where where there was a community and he started painting like God loves you Bible verses all this stuff on a Salvation Mountain that you may have seen in like a Coldplay video or a Ke$ha video right among among others and it's my RV was just across the street from it so there there are people driving in and parking and seeing this thing there's no admission you can walk on it and you can walk on it and it's the only places that they say to walk on it it's like a yellow brick road that goes around the that goes across the whole thing and I can I can show you a picture here so you can look at it it's it's three stories tall my selfie game is a little off if you go to if you go to the here you can flip that so you see it says god is love at the top of the mountain it's basically three stories tall and you can meander and I'm taking Jade on her leash and light were meandering and like you feel like you can you're gonna fall off at any moment but it's like slick undulating latex paint like layers and layers and layers of it and it's absolute it it looks like the craziest putt-putt course installation that you would ever that you would ever see without the pup-pup part and you can climb all the way to the top of it and it's just crazy so like I did that I'm not talking anybody even though there's people around and then like next to it there's this thing called the Hogan which I might be a Native American term it's also the last name of an awesome wrestler but this other hill over here that looks like another painted latex hill you can see that it has windows in it well this is not he didn't paint the hill he built a huge dome made out of hay bales and Adobe and there's like you can when you walk inside of it it's held up by these trees it's crazy it was like I was walking around in another world which just felt awesome in it but it's weird because there's this constant self-consciousness of like I don't belong here there's people who live here and they know I'm just kind of walking through I feel like I'm stepping on their toes and like who's this hipster guy walking around you know so there's this constant self-awareness that I had to continue to check in order to run in enjoy myself and on the other hand to like I don't know to feel like kind of break through and I have a delusion emit experience right does that make sense yeah and then I Drive into slab city to the other side of town and there's an area called East Jesus which has no actually has no religious connotation at all that's it just east of Salvation Mountain that's not what it is it well in reading the Wikipedia East Jesus just means it's like two clicks left of nowhere it's basically what it means it's like it's like a way of saying the middle of nowhere people say oh I said East Jesus it's like you'll never find it it might even seem anti Jesus or something I don't know is where the origin of the saint but when you get there there's a there's like a Cessna that's turned on its side that's now become a it's just like an art piece and there's all this reclaimed crap like cars and stuff that are turned into sculptures oh yeah and you walk around I mean if you walk around in the courtyard and it's like freaky like freaky baby dolls and I mean I'll show you the pictures but it's it feels it's an interesting feeling to be walking around in such a creepy place baking in the desert all by yourself you know when you're not talking anybody except your dog there were two dads with their kids that were there for a little bit of it I kind of wanted him to leave because it was he was screwing with my experience kids and then there was a like a cordoned off area on the edge of it where there was like all these old abandoned RVs and like a tour bus that was half buried and coming out of the desert and people would live there but I think they had all left because it was too hot but it was yeah he was getting too hot getting really hot it got so hot that after that I drove through slab city and there's like it's a grid of what looks to be RVs some a few new but most all of them look abandoned and to the point where people put signs out and say do not enter so because people think they can just take over but people are actually living in them there's people walking around I didn't really talk to anybody I just kind of cruise walked are you drunk I drove through with my a/c pumping it was like really hot to me like nine is anybody else you drive through not really there's a few people who drive around they'll go to East Jesus and then leave but I was like driving up and down the rows and like looking at people like the people some people would wave and like you know they've just chosen as a way of life to to live here off the grid it's like a simple life though they like bring in huge containers of water and then they'll make runs an hour away to the Walmart or something once a month and then just live out there people riding around on bike there's anybody selling anything are they making any money are they just living off of there was one guy who who had just set up shop out of his van like selling trinkets but I think that's more for tourists like closer to Salvation Mountain so not really a lot of that like the range is the name of that like outdoor bar area but they don't sell drinks you have to bring your own drinks if you go do it up going there I did not I went back to the RV and like it got so hot I couldn't be out and I didn't want to have Jade out in the heat I didn't think she was used to it but the urge it when you're in the RV or just in shade I'm in shade and there's a little breeze and that was all I could ask for and then that that night I went to eat dinner with cherry and Abel and the family and then that was great and then on the way back on the way to my RV took a little detour to the hot springs that is out there and this hot springs was like the most legit hot springs the way you imagined it like it was literally a water hole in the middle of a desert and it was her palm trees around it no some smaller brush trees and it was I'd say about 30 feet across and there was it was cloudy water and just like mud walls and it was bubbling up in the middle and there were two old naked men putting on their clothes and saying all right I'll see you donut the rain just missed it just missed him and then I so then nobody was there I got the Sun was going down oh no I got naked and I and I walked down a wooden ladder into it and it was it could have 96 to 98 degrees I mean it was it was hot well too cooler than your hot tub that's how much I would put mine on for but like 104 is like this hot as you can get your own yeah yeah wasn't that hot it was almost that hot I was surprised with how hot it was because sometimes the hot springs will be hotter than you know the regulations I didn't know that but I knew that the guys had gotten out so I and they said get in it so yeah there are some that are hotter than like there's something you can't get in like one there's one that's like 170 degrees oh gosh yeah you can't get in where that comes out you can get in down straight and when it's cooled down but it was it was over my head like and I was I was alone I was I wasn't I think you might would have done it but I I did not swim down and try to touch the bottom at where he was bubbling up hmm I didn't want to do that yeah Jade with Jade is on the banks and she was like looking at me like what the heck why you getting naked and what are you doing jumping in this water she thought I was nuts but that that was like a that was like a surreal moment I took like a mental picture cuz I'm like once she walked over it the slopes to come up and you can be in the water like up to your waist and ultimately your ankles and you can get out of other way but like I'm standing there and the Sun set and it's like across the desert and there's nobody there it was it's how you imagine you want to do like a the most rustic a pleaser but nobody was there that's at that point yeah it was crazy I mean no it no one will be there during the day cuz it's so freakin high then I went back to the RV and I was you know and I and um just hung out by myself did some reading and then end up talking to the neighbor like she was she was outside on her phone and she was like I couldn't see her because she was around the corner she was like blink and I was like yeah she was like if I'm talking too loud just let me know I'm like no it's fine and then she got off the phone and I ended up going over there and sitting down with her and just hanging out instead of going into town and like we were having a conversation and I forgotten that about the psychic sign oh she had the psychic sign yes she was the one with the psychic sign and and so we were looking at Salvation Mountain and I was like and she I had heard her on the phone talking about how she had used tarot cards to determine where she was going to live and I said and I was like you know a sparking conversation I was like do you think that that guy who on a mission from God painted that hill over there and the the universe as you refer to it the speaking to you through these cards to tell you where to live you think it's the same thing and like she started you know it's I my point is not to get into her answer or the or the philosophy of it all but just to say that that's the that's the nature of the conversation and I think I might have inadvertently had a condescending tone when talking about her tarot cards because I'm like I'm asking detailed questions like well if you use the cards to tell where you were gonna live did you and you ended up in San Diego what did you say anywhere on earth the cards please tell me or did you say San Diego because I kind of want to go there in a couple the places and this is in retrospect because graciously I mean she was she was very kind friendly person but at one point the conversation turned and she was like I don't know if I should say this but I feel and I so I'm taking a risk in oh and it's dark and she's we're not sitting next to each other she's like sitting eight feet away from me and I can't see your face because of the way that the moonlight and the shadows of her trailer I felt like I was in the light of the the moonlight but she was in the shadow so it was like it was kind of creepy I couldn't see her face at all I could you see this her silhouette and and then she's she's like she starts as she said you know it maybe it could be and I don't remember exactly what she said but she kind of described what she what might be someone's mental but where someone might be coming from from a place of fear when having the type of conversation that I was having with her and it was like weird it's like it kind of freaked me out and I was like did you just did you just like give me a reading or something and she was like I'm sorry I shouldn't do that and it was like she had described it was just weird because it freaked me out a little bit when she was talking about when people you know I think you're speaking from a place of fear when you're having this conversation with me about these things that my practices do responding and I was like I the way I responded was did you just like give me a reading or something and then I made a joke about how I didn't have five dollars so I deflected which you know she ended up saying well I'm an I'm an empath I can tell and I legitimately felt like that she picked that she did have she had insight into how like the psychology of how I was feeling but I too clarified it I didn't think it was spiritual or I didn't think it was negative in nature or even spiritual in nature my interpretation of it looking back on it was that like in the way that you would like have a conversation with a therapist he would have insight into like okay you're kind of hiding behind your fear here in the way that you're asking me these type of questions does that make sense that's ultimately how I felt like she was talking to me she could tell that you were specular speculative and you're in the nature of your questions yeah not speculative that's not the right word the right word is a suspicious yeah yeah so but it was kind of a weird moment and I think she you know we we kept talking and I think she was like she wasn't gonna offer like give me a palm reading or whatever it is she was she was had her sign up for but she gave me the opportunity to ask for that but in the moonlight and in the you know I had reached I had reached I'd reached my level of comfort I'd reached the limit of that and I was like you know what I think I'm gonna turn in I'm going to bed so it kind of had this it didn't end abruptly but I kind of had this I don't know it was kind of a weird vibe kind of a moment that's like I didn't know you see you the next day I saw her the next day and I was like I was packing my stuff up and I was leaving and I was like you know I appreciated our conversation last night and I wanted to apologize if I felt condescending if anything I said seemed condescending and she was like no I think whenever people speak from a place of fear it's all it's always if you understand it it's always understandable like if I were to understand what it is you're afraid of I would I would not hold it against you it's just we didn't discuss it it's kind of what she meant does that make sense yeah I guess I guess somebody who's out in the desert with a sign and finding themselves they can talk like they can say these type of things you're like I know the mode that you go into with those kinds of questions so I could see what she would take offense at it I didn't mean to well but I good like what you like what was underneath your but also there was this level of fear that I had about being in the whole place is like what am I like I said audibly a few times I was like what am I doing here like after the conversation with her I went back and I went back and I went to bed and I'm like in the bed and I'm like trying to go to sleep and I'm like I I heard I could hear her footsteps she's sneaking and I just felt like they were coming around my trailer gonna kill you and there was the auditor there was a little scratchy scratch on the door and Jade like perked up in the bed but Jade didn't bark and then in the morning I felt I talked to her I felt fine and I don't think she was creeping around my trailer anything else significant happen it's not like there's a it's like you spend quality time with yourself you isolate yourself with yourself and you you learn a little bit well I can't say exactly what I learned but it's funny because it's tough you talk about personality stuff as stuff that I'm kind of exploring within myself and I think that I I don't mean to cut you off again that's the part I left out is like I think that's why it kind of freaked me out was because she talked about fears and that was me and that was the thing that I was had been thinking about and that I'd kind of walked around I was good I was uneasy being there so there were a couple of different levels of fear that I had that I think anyone not anyone could pick up on but someone who you know you know it doesn't have to be creepy in order to pick up on it but it but it freaked me out a little bit I'm I'm processing some of the same stuff that was one of the reasons to run away now I also kind of knew that a couple of days is not enough time to actually make any real progress just people that I know that have done like right the time alone that you got you need a few days before you'd like to have some kind of breakthrough I mean the main thing I learned what besides how to have an awesome yoga class with with a lot of Bachelorette women is I'm not very good at being alone like as much as I want to be alone and I'm an introvert through and through and I say things like I need my alone time I find when I am finally in that place where I'm alone I'm kind of like I'm not that good at this and there is this slightly complicating factor of somebody might know who I am it's like you know I like I went to the spa got a massage and then went into the the hot I was like interacting with his girl and like she was like you this is where you can go to there's a other another hot tub like on the hillside that I went to for like 30 minutes cuz it comes with the massage or whatever and then I like come back down the hill on my paying she's like by the way I'm a big fan of your show and because that happens pretty regularly thankfully great that means people are watching I that's why I didn't go to the restaurant by myself right because I'm yeah their self-consciousness there's this like ooh Rhett's eating alone what's he's weird I'm gonna go tell my friends you know they got from the show that mythical morning thing like he eats alone at restaurants he's a creep you know like even though I know that it's not actually what that means I have I have fears associated with that and so there's a lot of self-consciousness as I'm kind of going about my alone weekend that's why ideally I would just go to the desert where I'm completely alone and I actually don't have to interact with people and I'm like I'm forced to kind of confront things within myself which is what I hope to do later yeah all that to say I end up doing things like I'm not gonna watch any TV but then I watch TV I'm gonna watch a movie but I bring up a movie on my you know I'm saying it's like I don't actually completely can disconnect I kind of feel like the lesson I learned is I need to set boundaries and rules going in and actually follow through with them but even getting I mean if getting in touch with yourself as first getting in touch with your self-consciousness you know I think that is an element of what it sounds like we both did a little bit but I did but I confronted it head-on in that yoga class and I was dancing but I was dancing at the end you know okay well this has been a fun catch-up conversation this has been quite quite a weekend for you huh why do we good huh for you you're gonna tell this story right you're telling this story right now about the big guy that you touched his butt with your butt right before you got married you'll tell your husband about it right that was crazy all right shout out to all my slab errs in Slab City and we'll talk at you next week with another one you know thanks for hanging out [Music]

Channel: Ear Biscuits

Views: 1,864,645

Rating: 4.4790196 out of 5

Keywords: link, rhett, mythical morning, earbiscuit, gmm podcast, ear biscuit, podcast, eb, mythical podcast, rhettandlink, gmm, earbiscuits, good mythical morning, rhett and link, ear biscuits, mythical, rhett and link podcast

Id: 788yslWOocc

Length: 94min 23sec (5663 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 07 2019