PILTDOWN MAN AND THE CARDIFF GIANT
Two longtime friends, one a former comedian and the other a world traveler, riff on life, the arts, music, sports, travel and Horehound candy, and follow rabbit holes on just about anything. Much of it tongue in cheek while entertaining themselves and hopefully you. Future plans are interviews and at least one listener.
PILTDOWN MAN AND THE CARDIFF GIANT
(18) "Altitude Sickness, Pickpockets, And Boobies: Travel Tales With Heart."
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Breathless in Quito, dazzled in the Galapagos, and lighter one wallet in Barcelona—we trace a messy, meaningful arc through the kind of travel that leaves a mark and a moral. We swap stories from Machu Picchu’s terraces to Ireland’s chalk-dusted betting rings, pairing wonder with the unglamorous truths of altitude, street smarts, and plans that fall apart.
We start with Peru: Cusco as a launchpad, the Urubamba River roaring beyond its banks, and Machu Picchu framed by cloud and stone. That beauty carries a cost—distance from care and the thin line between ambition and prudence—so we talk plainly about aging, risk, and why returning sometimes means staying home. Quito follows as a paradox: a city rich with culture and thinner-than-thin air. One of us faints, twice, learns a hospital from the inside, and still calls it worth it because the Galapagos awaits with warm-water penguins, blue-footed and red-footed boobies, and islands so different you can see evolution with your own eyes.
Then Spain turns from postcard to plot twist. Barcelona sweeps us up—tapas, guitar, the thrill of just being there—before a pickpocket at the bus station resets the day. A police report becomes comedy gold, safety pins become fashion with a purpose, and we outline simple, proven tactics for keeping your money and your nerve: front pockets, split cards, low-profile habits, and a plan for when things go sideways. We round out the journey with the Irish Derby, where old-school bookies and a modest bet become a $3,800 lesson in restraint and luck, plus a white-knuckle lap around Ireland’s narrow roads and the humility that follows a fender-bending mistake.
Across these miles, a theme holds: travel is a dialogue between intention and surprise. The best souvenirs are skills—how to breathe at 9,000 feet, how to read a crowd, how to savor a city without turning your pockets inside out. If these tales stirred a memory or sharpened a plan, tap follow, share with a friend who loves imperfect adventures, and leave a review to tell us where we should head next.
Please leave us your comments, text me, DM me, give me your thoughts. what works and what doesn't land? We want to improve.
thanks for listening
Joe
Opening Banter And Setup
SPEAKER_00Hey everybody, it's Built Down Man and the Cardiff Giant, episode 18. Eighteen. Yeah, and that was uh Ed Penn on the guitar. Uh I'm Joe Flush. Let me just say this. I I tried really hard to uh I've noticed that all these mouth noises that I make and the squeaky chairs and all that kind of stuff that goes on, uh especially when you're playing guitar, which really helps you, I think. Uh but I just uh now I found that I've gotta I try to hold my breath and not move while you're playing the guitar. So I appreciate these small little snippets of uh because that is. We're aiming toward 80 now, then aren't we? We gotta sets on 80. I think we can do it. I think we can too. Uh long as somebody else didn't come along and talk more about it. And we gotta cover that.
SPEAKER_01Well, they won't talk about our experiences, you know, be their own, I guess.
SPEAKER_00You know, I haven't I haven't traveled much the last few years because of all the injuries and you know, the heart attacks.
SPEAKER_01Well then there was the the coronavirus too. Yeah, oh yeah, traveling it off for about a year.
SPEAKER_00I was already out of commission, so it didn't really. Yeah, but uh of course you and I went on the Wisconsin trip and that was fun. We did. I mean, that was a a nothing trip for some people, and it meant everything to me because I just needed it really bad.
SPEAKER_01It was one of my most enjoyable trips, really. It was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because we didn't really have much of an agenda, not we didn't.
SPEAKER_01We had a loose agenda.
SPEAKER_00We had like seven things I jotted down, and I think we did four of them five. And uh we didn't get to the freshwater fish uh place.
Why Short Guitar Bits And Studio Noise
SPEAKER_00That would be a nice place to go.
SPEAKER_01We gotta go back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But anyway, I mean you've done a lot of traveling, maybe not as much as you want to. Uh you made a quick trip to Mexico recently.
SPEAKER_01Well, that turned out well. I came back with a head, had a head injury there, and I came back with a head injury, which fortunately I don't think anyone can tell. Can you tell?
SPEAKER_00No, not really. That's what I thought. Yeah. Well, I've had enough head injuries. I probably am not a good place, but I've been falling so much. God, uh, but Ed, there's a ball game coming up, man. You
Travel After Injuries And Covid
SPEAKER_00got to get grabbed together. Uh what are some of the uh what's your some of your favorite places you've traveled?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think we've talked maybe at least once about Pamplona, um, Spain, where we ran for the Bulls. So I won't lead with that. One of my favorite trips, actually two stick in my mind. One of my favorite trips um is to uh Peru to go to Machu Pichi, the Inca ruins. And I've been twice. In fact, I I do it well enough now, I think that I could probably lead a group of tourists there because I know where the stops are, I know the getting off places. You lead a one-legged man up there. I probably could. I put I'd put in a wheelbarrow, you know, wheelbarrow and barrel you up there. Is that barrel? Is that a verb? Could that be a wheelbarrel you? I think you could that would work. Yeah, that would bleed so it could be a noun or verb either.
SPEAKER_00I don't know, man. You need to check that out.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'll do that next time, I suppose, before I use it.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, I I wish that I got to go much in PC. Um I do know, you know, I'm a realist and I look at my condition.
SPEAKER_01I don't think I can go back, you know, because I'm uh it's so far from any really good medical care. It's so far. You'd be in trouble if you had a major incident thing.
SPEAKER_00Well, I know what you would say about me. You'd say it won't be fun for you.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you very much. But anyway, uh Machu Picchu is one of my favorite trips. Um and I like I said, I've been there twice, and I really love Cusco, Peru, which is kind of a jumping-off place from Lima to uh to Cusco to Aguas Caliente, and Oyana Tonbay is also one of the middle towns that you can get to Machu Picchu from. But to make a long story short, I love I live that part of the world. It's really fabulous. Um there are parrots that fly through the trees there. There'll be a flock of parrots, like 20 of them, flying flying through the trees there above the Urabamba River. And the Urubamba River, the last time I was there,
Wisconsin Trip And Loose Plans
SPEAKER_01it was out of its banks, and it was like the Colorado. It was just tumbling. It was really impressive. But I like I like Machu Picchu, I like Peru. But one that you and I have in common, I think, is Quito, Ecuador.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I think you you Oh, I was going to the Galapagos Islands, and uh that was my trip of a lifetime. Oh, it's it was uh to every every day seeing some, and what I didn't really know is that none of those islands are the same. There you can see an island from where you are on this island, but you go over there and the animals are completely different and stuff like that. I had no idea. Oh, yeah. And and the birds there, a lot of boobies. Uh they're no. Yeah, well, uh the blue-footed booby and the red the blue-footed booby and the Nazca booby. Uh, the Nazca boobies are on the cliffs and do their nesting there. The blue-footed boobies build these nest-like things, uh like lazy nests, or they throw a bunch of sticks together. And then there's the red-footed boobies. There's three types, and the redfoot uh build their nests in trees. They have they're the only ones whose feet will curl to hold
Favorite Journeys: Peru And Machu Picchu
SPEAKER_00on to a tree limb. Is that where you got your interest in in birds and bird watching? No, no. I've been I've I've loved that for years and years. And I gotta tell you, this is underlying, I guess. But I had an American crow here yesterday, which is my 40 uh 38th different species that has come to my bird feeder in the last eight months. How do you know that he didn't cross the border from Mexico? He might have it says American crow. You know, I think he wants to be identified as an American crow.
SPEAKER_01Well, of course he did. Of course he does.
SPEAKER_00I had no idea we had that many birds around here. But the thing about the Galapagos is there's there's a lot of birds, uh, but most of them are variations of the other birds. Did you know that going in? I I did a little bit, but boy, you get a feel for it when you're there. Of course, yeah. When you go uh and it's kind of cool because none of those animals on there, not just the birds, but uh the sea lions and uh seals, and uh they they don't have snakes, they have one little tiny snake that is a constrictor, but it's about the size of a pencil. Well that's not too intimidating. No, no. Uh but uh the uh the water, the color of the water is uh I don't know how you manufacture that. I did a painting here recently called Tortuga Island or Tortuga Tortuga Bay, I'm sorry. And the water is very close to that color. Um Tortuga means uh turtle in Spanish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and you know, and people do know about Galapagos turtles. Yeah, like they're only on one island. Did you know that?
SPEAKER_01No, I didn't know that either.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. It's only I mean they used to be on all those places, but so many people came in and because it was easy food for these sailors, they would load the tortoises on their boats and eat them on the way out. Have you ever eaten turtles? I uh haven't. I'm you know, I I'm not sure, but I don't think I have.
SPEAKER_01I have. Yeah? Yeah, as a kid. I can't remember what what under what circumstances um it was, but I remember my mother talking about it, and uh of course I was wary of it. I didn't like the idea of it, you know, beginning with so I can't say that I've ever had it since then.
SPEAKER_00Oh well uh there there was a guy in Camelsburg, though, that I hung out with some he was a turtle hunter, uh a farmer, probably. Uh he loved to hunt turtles, and he would go places where he knew they were gonna be and stick his hands down. That's called noodling. Is that what it is? That's called noodling, yes. You have to be a little bit stupid to do it. Well, yeah, but he he would always say, well, they'd go straight in, yeah. So you're getting the back end of the shell. But his the scars on his hand told me that some of them turned around. Some of them I think had decided to back in to be safe or something. Because they knew he was around. They they might want to get out early, you know, because next time they unparked. Uh but yeah, he was uh but he said you know he made turtle soup all the time.
SPEAKER_01But what what do you think about Quito as a city? Because that was a jumping off spot to the Galapagos.
SPEAKER_00I like it, but let me tell you one thing about Quito, and you know this from having been there. There's no air there. There's zero air there, it seems like to me. We got to Quito uh right before we were going to the Galapagos, and Mary Kay and I uh went there and we got to the hotel, and we're standing at the front desk. I'm thinking, I can't move anymore. I can't. And they gave us these uh leaves and coca leaves. Coca leaves and and kind of a
Birds, Rivers, And Andes Memories
SPEAKER_00tea. Yeah, the it's a stimulant just like caffeine. Well, we drank a lot of that. Uh we we wanted to get some snacks, so we walked down about a quarter of a mile to a little store, and I didn't think I was gonna get back. I know.
SPEAKER_01If you think you've uh you've had altitude sickness before, maybe in Denver or someplace like that, you you haven't until you get to one of these places in South America.
SPEAKER_00Well, I had no idea. I mean, I heard them say thin air, uh, but I thought that that meant there was some air.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, which uh they have to define the word thin for you, really. Uh yeah, I've I I I passed out in in uh Quito. I like to see what the inside of air of hospitals looked like in every country. You passed out in Quito. I passed out in Quito and and it was uh at a place that I was staying. And uh I knew that I was a little bit uh more dizzy than usual. And my uh most of my friends would say that I'm you know, that's a benchmark for me, sort of. I'm pretty dizzy all the time, I guess. But uh I was exceptionally dizzy when I went to the bathroom one evening, and um I I passed out on the bathroom floor in the stall where I was with my pants down around my ankles. So you passed out of the public bathroom. Well, it was the place I was staying, it was an Airbnb kind of nice, but it wasn't any place that you want to a bathroom for you want to put your cheek on.
SPEAKER_00If you were playing mumbling paid, would you have played in that bathroom?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe not, but I remember coming to, I remember hearing something, and then I
Quito As Gateway To Galapagos
SPEAKER_01I came to, and I remember I I sort of hit my head on the uh the stall, the side of the stall or the stall door, but I came to and my right cheek was on the floor, and I immediately thought, I wonder why I I'm down here. And then I thought, was I looking for something down here? And why would I put my cheek on the floor to look for something down here? Well, I figured out that I'd passed out and I pulled my pants back up and went back to the room. My cousin was there. And I said, you know, I passed out in the the bathroom just now. Well, I passed out again while I was talking to him in the middle of the floor. Right. So that's I I've I've had altitude sickness in at least two places. I had it in Cusco, uh, Peru, and I had it in Quito, Ecuador. And uh in Cusco I I flattened out on the uh on the cobblestones in the middle of the street. So but like I said, I I I went to the hospital for these things because I thought I could have had a concussion, or I couldn't figure out exactly what was happening. You know, I thought might be something more severe. So I tried to look at I try I try, in fact, I could uh I could make a coffee table book of hospitals I visited around the world.
SPEAKER_00You ought to do that, man. You got time. Yeah, I suppose. You know, uh well, I didn't pass out there. Uh both Mary Kay and I would barely get back to the room, and I don't think we moved after we got there. We just kept kept chewing on those cocoa leaves. It's hard, it's really difficult. And we uh wanted to uh I I don't know, it was uh it was just like one or two nights that that we had to be there, and so we made it through, and then by the time you get to the Galapagos, no, that's not a problem at all.
SPEAKER_01So you you've acclimated by that time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we're talking about the birds and stuff when uh uh we got to one island in the Galapagos. A lot of people don't know this. A lot of people don't know this, Eddie. Uh there was one there that only had two birds. They had flamingos and penguins.
Boobies, Penguins, And Island Ecology
SPEAKER_00That was it.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_00And the you did see what they call penguinos. We saw those penguinos in several places. I find out later uh that penguins are mostly warm weather birds. It's very rare. It's like 80% of the types of penguins are warm weather birds. And uh they're pretty cool looking. They're tiny little birds and they slide like a fish, you know, through the water. But uh we saw so many things, and some of the pictures I took, uh, I still look back on them and go, wow, we were really there. It was just a cool, cool trip. Uh it's sort of like Barcelona for us. Yeah. I couldn't believe I was there. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Well, you know, we we were going to Barcelona, uh, and Barcelona is a beautiful city. It's it's right up there.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I recommend it. It's it's fabulous.
SPEAKER_00I recommend it too, except uh but what when we first got to Barcelona and we were gonna go from there to Pamplona. Uh oh. I remember you said, Joe, we're in fucking Barcelona. It was it was it was it was fantastic. Yes. And we ate all the little uh what now tapas. The tapas. Oh yeah. I mean they bring they bring the menu around and go, I want that, that, that. That's right. You know, you just it was constant eating, and then there was a musician there that played, you know, Spanish music and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01It was just I have fine memories of Barcelona, but I also have some not so fine memories of Barcelona. I think I know that story. Uh so I guess I'll tell it. Yeah. Uh when Joe and I got to Barcelona, it it had been a long trip anyway. I I but was this the second day that we were there that I that this incident that I knew about you described occurred?
SPEAKER_00Uh I didn't we stay in Barcelona a couple days. Yeah, but it wasn't the first day that we got there. Okay, we got to Barcelona, then we were gonna go to Pamplona. Yeah, yeah. And then we came back to Barcelona. Right.
SPEAKER_01But it was on the way to Barcelona, or on the way to Pamplona, before we got ready to go to Pamplona, when Joe and I went to the bus station. And I think this is where this occurred. Uh we'd got in a bus and we'd already even thrown our baggage onto the into the cargo hole of the bus. And uh all of a sudden I realized that I didn't have my wallet. And uh for someone as OCD as I am, it threw me into a just a complete well, it would throw anybody into a panic. Yeah. Mine was exponentially a panic. And I thought I was gonna pass out and I thought I was gonna puke uh both at the same time. But anyway, I I thought, where in the world could I have gotten, did I lose it or did my pocket get picked? Well, it turns out that that's an actual industry in some of these big cities, especially Barcelona. That's a cottage industry. They said it was the pickpocket capital for the world. Exactly. And all of a sudden I realized that I didn't have my wallet, but my bag was still on the bus, and Joe was sitting on the side uh uh on a uh on a bench, I guess, or on the sidewalk.
SPEAKER_00Well, we were standing there, and the next thing I know, you make a big leap into the cargo mold.
SPEAKER_01Uh without I had to have my credit cards and stuff with me, you know, and I didn't have any of that stuff. I I still had my passport, it seems like. In fact, I don't know it did, but I didn't have all my credit cards that I needed to actually pay for stuff that I'm gonna
Art, Water Colors, And Tortoises
SPEAKER_01need during the trip. So anyway, I ran and it was a partial uh cargo hold, which means that it was the top was sort of down on the side of the bus, but it was still four feet up uh uh that I had to jump over and uh dove into. I dove into that cargo hole.
SPEAKER_00I gave you a 7.5 on the pretty good dive, I think, and looking back at it, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01But anyway, um I I grabbed our bags out of there and then so did we leave did we wind up leaving that day? Uh no, we didn't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we went to to do it another day because uh everything had kind of been disrupted. Exactly. And uh in the meantime, you know, all the stuff I had packed that I was gonna be good with uh when we actually did leave Barcelona, I left my camera. Yeah, I left my camera there.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, you do remember that we put reported this theft to the police.
SPEAKER_00God, that was so funny.
SPEAKER_01Uh, we went to the uh closest police station that we could find, as I recall, and there was a young guy, middle-aged guy behind the counter, wore glasses. Not important to the story at all, but that's just that's what he looked like. He looked like he was about 40 years old. A little nerd, a little bit nerdish, wireframe glasses. But anyway, I was standing, Joe and I were standing in front of him, and he said, uh, in a really heavy uh English, he was speaking English but with a heavy uh Spanish accent. He said, uh, do you know, tell me if if you can uh where it is you're staying? And I said, We just got here and I I I hadn't written it down. I can't tell you where it is I'm staying. And he said, Well, maybe your friend, uh your friend can help you decide, you know, determine where it is the address of the place that you're staying.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, he turned to me and said, he turned to me and said, uh, you know, he can't remember. Perhaps you can say something that will help him remember. Jug is memory. Jug is memory. And I said, no, I I can't. And if you can't the two of you together can think really, really, really hard. Yeah, think really hard. Because we weren't doing that at that point. Uh yeah, thank you. I
Turtle Hunting And Noodling Tales
SPEAKER_00can remember my line back to him, but it was something like that. Well, you had some good lines out of it. Sarcasm. But yeah, he asked you when he asked you uh what you lost, the wallet, you had to describe it. And then he asked you uh what did he ask you the value of it? He asked you how much money, yeah, how much money did it cost. Yeah. And you're like, $4.99.
SPEAKER_01Are you talking about the value of the wallet per se?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Of the contents of the wallet. Exactly. So it kind of put you in a bind uh because I was gonna come back from um Pampolono via Barcelona. And go home. And go home and you were gonna stay for a while. But then if you gave me, remember, you gave me a little bit of money. I gave you most of the money I had. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh but I found a place to stay, and I thought I'd paid for two nights. You you gave me enough money. I thought it was for two nights, and I'd only paid for one, which became a problem when I had to stay a second night without any money. What'd you do? I slept outside. So in the meantime So in the meantime, I had uh texted one of my good friends. In fact, two of them in fact, three five seven friends. Every friend you had one A, one B, one C, one D, and one E. My friend list. But um at first I I said, you know, the uh I feel like Warren uh uh Zivon uh The the shit has hit the fan. Send lawyers, guns, and money the shit has hit the fan. And I said, I'm gonna need, I've got to change my ticket. Can you send me $5,000? Of course, anybody's gonna respond to that. What the hell are you talking about? So anyway, I said, I might not need $5,000. I might need $10. I might need $10,000 to get out of here because they're gonna come home. And Delta's telling me it's gonna they're gonna charge me this exorbitant amount. Make a long story short, uh, my friend sent me some money. Um I was able to get home, but I planned on being gone for two and a half or three months. I'd plan on going to Portugal, I'd plan on spending much some time on the coastline there, travel all around Portugal and come back to Spain.
SPEAKER_00You're not very good with plans, are you? I think it's a Mexico trip. Yeah, it makes me think that I need to stop traveling probably. Well, no, yeah. I mean, it's it's like anything else. You do it, you've uh there's gonna always be problems. Yeah. That one was uh uh the way that guy asked you about the value of the stuff and the sarcasm that you were doling out, and he didn't ever catch it. No, it was like a sitcom. I remember. It was, it was. I laughed. And then we went out uh while we were there, there was a girl there that was crying. You remember that? And I went over to her and goes, Are are you okay? Well,
Altitude Shock In Quito
SPEAKER_00somebody had pulled her car over and had punched out all the type.
SPEAKER_01And she'd been traveling on that barge, and somebody put uh um punctured the tires on this barge. Oh, yeah. They couldn't even move it off the barge when she got there.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. So, yeah, so so you don't get in your pocketbook wasn't such a bad thing compared to that.
SPEAKER_01One other thing about that that I need to add, and you remember it, we went to eat the next day, and uh we ate at a pretty decent restaurant because you were getting ready to go home pretty soon. And there was this German, this older German couple sitting next to us, and we talked to him in English, his English was as good as ours, and he said, Listen, I knew that was coming. He said, So I've I've took taken safety pins and put them all over the I've I've safety pinned five state safety pins on this left pocket where I'm keeping my wallet. He said, It's a little trouble to get my wallet out when I need it, but it's gonna be secure. Yeah. I can get that out of there.
SPEAKER_00So now we're making Barcelona sound like a terrible place. It is. But there was a little uh uh other thing that happened while we were there. I had uh uh a lady of the night kept trying to pick me up.
SPEAKER_01Oh I remember that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was I I couldn't and every time I said no, no, no, and I was almost yelling at her, trying to be kind, but she kept walking with me and she turned to you and said, Oh, he's just a little shy. And yeah, honey, let me come with you, honey. You know, uh, but uh she wouldn't have been my choice.
SPEAKER_01Uh Emily, I my wife Emily and I went to back back to Barcelona a few years ago, and it was a fabulous trip. It was a little bit better trip because I had kept my money, I kept my wallet with me that time.
SPEAKER_00You know, the thing is when I guess the only part you left out is you you were OCD about the money thing. You knew that it could be a problem. Oh, I didn't tell you you were smacking your pot. I do that all the time. You were doing a little uh dance there, like here's my money right here. Yeah, I was pointing it out to people. Is there something I never I never saw anybody get near us? I didn't either.
SPEAKER_01I don't know how it occurred. I have no idea.
SPEAKER_00But you have to assume that they're pretty good at it. It's almost like magic. Before we leave this place, we got another story?
SPEAKER_01I don't think so. Uh, you know, uh I I rem I have fond memories of our trip to Pamplona and running with the Bulls, even the Mars for the Barcelona part of it. And the fact that we have a uh story uh together about uh uh Ecuador. Um I really that's one place I want to go back to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If I pick places I want to go back to, it's Quito, Ecuador. That's that's high on my list, and I really recommend it to travel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'll tell you a couple of places that I've been. Uh the first time I ever left the United States, I went uh my cousin Alan Wade was over in uh he was in England, and I found out the English Derby was about to be and so I get on the plane for the first time in my life. I'd only had like a three-day weekend that I could work. And I got on there, flew to uh England, watched the English derby, and then flew home. And uh the weird thing about it is coming back, like I got on an earlier flight just by running to the earlier flight. Uh that was in June uh 2001. You were running at that time, weren't you? Yeah. But still but yeah, 9-11 happened two months later. Yeah. So that changed all the travel. Yeah, for everybody. I I thought about that. Uh no one's ever gonna travel like I did for that. But yeah, Alan and I had a great time.
SPEAKER_01You won some money there, didn't you?
SPEAKER_00No, well, not not in England. I I uh but but Mary Kay and I went to uh Ireland, I think. Oh, that was a separate trip. Yeah, it was like four years later, and I took my mom because my dad had just passed, and she needed to get some kind of special trip. So we took her and uh Mary Kay's Aunt Eleanor,
Fainting Stories And Hospital Tours
SPEAKER_00and we went to see the Irish Derby. And in that case, I had already learned a lot in England about how they bet. It's that's a whole, you know, it w it was really different back then because there were actually people with chalkboards that you'd go up and they had their odds on the chalkboards and they were competing with each other. So they would go, I can give you better odds than that. They would erase a number and put a different number up and all that. And I uh so I knew a little bit about how that worked, and they had a thing called Play Spot where you had to pick horses that would be in the money. I think it was six straight races. I didn't know the horses, I did know some of the farms, uh, but I put together uh a small bet, didn't cost us much, and brought in, I think it was thirty eight hundred dollars. It's pretty good. Yeah. When I when I came back, when I came back to uh the grandstand, once I'd cashed out, I didn't tell everybody like right away. And Mary Kay said she was thinking, oh, poor guy, you know, he's he's trying to do this and he probably didn't win. And I and I so I opened my pocket and show her, and she got so excited, she was shaking the woman who she thought was my mom. She was going, Mima, me ma and it wasn't my mom, it was some stranger. But and then there were guys that followed us all the way, and you know, it was kind of frightening, but they were fine. But that was in Ireland. That was in Ireland. Um the horse that had won, the horse that had won the uh English Derby in uh 2001 had also won the Irish Derby in 2001. Well, we went to Hoommore Farms and saw him and got pictures with that horse. So it's just a lot of cool stuff that happened. So that was a great for a hor horse racing fan like you are that that that was. It was and to see the joy in my mom's yeah, and you know, mom would never leave the country again. She she uh turned out. Yeah, she well she did go to uh she went to Alaska one time, which was a big trip for her. But uh but no, that was that was her only time. But she had a great time.
SPEAKER_01We have uh Ireland uh in common. Uh my wife and I went with some close friends about three and a half, four years ago, I guess. But uh that's a place that I'd go back to. You would too, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00I would too if I had a new leg.
SPEAKER_01But Scotland, uh you don't I haven't been to Scotland. We've been to Sc we went to Scotland. I drove a rental car. Um it was an Audi A5, um, the whole perimeter of Ireland, and it was somewhere around 1200 miles. That's pretty scary. I drove on the wrong side of the road for me with the steering wheel on the wrong damn side of the car. And so I was constantly trying to figure out what the what the uh um the space looked like on my left uh front fender, you know, because I couldn't see it at all, but I knew that I was hitting weeds and stuff along the side of the those country roads. And those country roads, if you remember, some of them marked much more than six feet wide. No, they really aren't.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if I ever told you this, but we wrecked
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SPEAKER_00in Ireland. Oh, you did tell me then. Yeah, yeah. It was uh my uh it was Mary Kay's Aunt Eleanor who told us she had driven in Ireland many, many years before.
SPEAKER_01And she might have but believed her in authority in the next problem, didn't it?
SPEAKER_00Well, we finally voted her out as the as the driver at the But that was after the second accident, wasn't it? Well, the first the first one was a real accident. And uh after we got you know new tires and fixed the car and all that kind of stuff, uh she wanted to drive again, and she drove about two miles and we called a halt to that uh because it was gonna happen again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, but it was a great I'll tell you one other place that you gotta go that I don't think you've ever been to Prague.
SPEAKER_01No, I want to go though and hear great stories about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, go to Prague. Yeah. Uh anyway, I guess we're gonna have to go now. We've talked too long. And uh I've enjoyed it, and I hope hope you guys will keep listening. Uh we're enjoying ourselves and we're doing it our own way. So that makes me happy.
SPEAKER_01If you think it's just a conversation between two old men talking about the past, well, a lot of it is, but a lot of it's not going to be, you know, it's so we've got to do something for everybody, I think.
SPEAKER_00Maybe not. We haven't talked a little boo-boos yet. Well we'll get all right. Thank you. Play us out, Eddie.
