(46) "Chasing Goosebumps - Travel Moments That Stop You Cold"

A backyard bird feeder camera should be harmless, right? Then it shows you a version of yourself you weren’t prepared to meet, and suddenly you’re thinking about age, perspective, and the strange distance between how we feel and how we look. That little jolt kicks off a bigger theme: the “good kind” of hair-standing-up moments, when surprise turns into awe instead of fear.

We swap bucket list travel stories that still feel electric years later. Rome isn’t just the Colosseum, it’s the instant you turn a corner and the Trevi Fountain hits you with brightness and scale that your brain couldn’t properly pre-load. We talk Spanish Steps street life, a once-in-a-lifetime peek beneath Vatican City, and why expectations can dull a place until the real thing resets your senses.

Then we jump to Europe at sunrise, stepping out of the subway to see Notre Dame for the first time and later reflecting on the cathedral before and after the fire. From there it’s a hard pivot to Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls atmosphere, nonstop music, white-and-red crowds, and the kind of festival energy that makes you feel pulled into the story even if you didn’t plan to run.

We also hit moments that aren’t tourist postcards: arriving at Lackland Air Force Base at nineteen, the Galapagos Islands where animals don’t fear humans, and Machu Picchu at dawn with altitude and oxygen in the mix. The thread through it all is practical: travel while you’re young enough to enjoy it, because “someday” can show up with less time and less stamina. If these stories sparked a memory, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us what place gave you goosebumps?

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

Transcript

Ice Cream Anniversary Win

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hey everybody, it's Piltdown Man and the Cardiff Giant. We're in episode 46, and that means we've done 45 before this. Uh I'm Joe Flush, and this is my partner, Eddie Penn.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Hey, good afternoon, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah. Well, Eddie, I'm kind of celebrating today. Uh an anniversary.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

The anniversary of what?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Well, actually, June 14th, uh, which I think will be the day this is released, 1998. I ate some ice cream without dripping any of it on my clean shirt.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Well, I guess that is a reason to celebrate.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Yeah, it's never happened since. And I want to add that I had I had Hershey's syrup on it as well. Well, that was d doubly good then for you, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Or tricky. Quadruply good for you, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Has that ever happened to you where you didn't drip it on your own?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Anything like that, I I don't think it has anything to do with getting old because I was good at doing that when I was in my teens and twenties and thirties and forties and fifties and sixties. So I'd always manage to get something on my my good shirt, my clean shirt. So no matter what it was.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Hey you guys, if you're out there trying not to get any on you. So that's gonna be my thing.

Getting Older Versus Feeling Young

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Uh, but I I was kind of just tossing around the ideas today uh uh, you know, you and I are both let's say we're elderly. That's the best we can say now.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

I guess you know, but I still don't consider myself that. You know, I consider myself bouncy, but I'm not I'm not bouncy at all.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

I know I mean you can consider yourself anything you want, right? That's right. But here's where it comes down to reality.

Bird Feeder Camera Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 2:20

I uh I was refilling the bird feeders and uh, you know, getting I had too many blackbirds, so I was trying to change up the food a little bit to get some other things. And I was out there shooting it, and I've got this uh feeder, I think I've mentioned, that has a camera there, and it's great. Uh, but I got back inside and I saw the videos of what had been coming to the feeder, including me, and it scared the hell out of me. Did you think you'd seen Bigfoot? Yeah, I you know, I mean, you have in your mind what you look like, uh, but that's not reality. It it'll look like the scariest gargantuan thing uh feeding that I've ever seen. And it actually set me back a bit. Bigfoot. Yeah, sorry.

The Good Kind Of Goosebumps

SPEAKER_00 3:20

But you know, you and I have lived a while. We've had you're you've traveled. I've I've traveled some, you've traveled way more, way more. And uh we've had moments in our lives, I think, that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. I just or I have, have you had that happen?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Now let's make the distinction because we were talking about it. It's not the distinction. The distinction we need to make is it's not the kind of hair standing on the back of your neck where you're you're scared. You're you're scared out of your mind. It's the kind of hair on the back of your neck where you see something sort of unexpected in a good way, most of the time, I think.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, I have I have so little hair, period, that I it's actually just a metaphor for me.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Well, I I I've seen the back of your neck and you don't have anything to worry about because you've you've got plenty of hair there.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. But I was thinking about, I mean, we really have bumped into things hip, and I've had moments in my life where the it was so unexpected that it it was just it was really special. And I think I'm gonna mention some, and you can mention some if you want, and we'll just see what the thoughts are on it. I

Rome Wonders And Trevi Surprise

SPEAKER_00 4:41

I I was in Rome. I went to Rome. You haven't been to Rome, have you?

SPEAKER_02 4:46

No, but uh if I if I were there, I you know I'd do as the Romans do.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yes. Yeah, yeah, you should. And uh I I went and in my mind I pictured the Coliseum. That was the thing that if I was gonna see one thing in Rome, I wanted to see the Coliseum. And it is phenomenal. I mean, now when I was there, they were doing some reclamation and stuff, it kind of covered up a lot of it, which was disappointing. But inside it was really something. And uh, and they you know, it was actually one of the biggest, uh, it wasn't the biggest uh Coliseum, the where they did all the stuff, the farmers and racing and yeah, because that's Madison Square Garden, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

It is joke, that's just a little joke.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

It is today, anyway. Uh but no, no, it it was it lived up to the building. The only thing I'd say is disappointing is I saw people uh chipping off pieces of the wall.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Of course they were.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And uh and Romans uh they have a hard time with that. They it's a problem, they tell them not to do it, but there's not that much enforcement. But it was exciting to see. But let me tell you an unexpected one for me. Uh we decided to kind of uh uh roam, and uh we were moving around, we saw the Spanish steps, which are also awesome. I mean, you're you're there and you you see the Spanish steps, and you want to say, they're just steps, but they're not. It's uh a landmark, it's historic. And uh right around the corner of there, we were we were just kind of moving around. And uh I asked Mary Kay, where are we going? She said, Well, we're gonna find this Trevi fountain. And I pictured my mind, I'd seen some pictures, and I kind of pictured uh a large, a huge, like fountain and all that. And uh it was like going around the corner, and all of a sudden, this bright, uh, smallish uh fountain area was there, and it it took my breath away. I was like, man, this is not what I expect at all. But we stood there probably an hour just taking in the beauty of that thing. It's just phenomenal. And I had bought a centurion hat. Of course I had. Of course you did. And I was just wearing it as a joke to get some pictures, and man, two guys that were actually ri dressed in centurion outfits were not happy with me. Don't screw around with the centurions, man. Yeah, they uh they were actually getting paid to take their picture with people, and they didn't like me stepping in there with my own outfit. Uh so what I did was tip them very well and went on my way. But I'd tell you, I think it was the unexpected uh, you know, you have in your mind what it's gonna look like, and then you get there. And obviously, this when we're we were in Rome, we also uh went to the Scobi, uh, which they normally don't take people on that tour, but Eleanor had a connection in some way, and they gave us a tour of that. And that's interesting. It's like in the middle of uh Vatican City. You you're going down into a it's actually John's tomb, I think. I think it was John. Yeah. And you go down and they let you see. Uh, if you look squint in the corner of your eye, you can see a wet red ribbon in the far corner that is covering some of the bones. No, it was Peter, I think. It was Peter. What the hell did I say John for?

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Well, it was Peter, Paul, or Mary. It could have been Peter or Paul or maybe Mary. Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Maybe not. Well, it was a it was a bone, supposedly, but we didn't even see the bone. We saw part of the ribbon that was covering it. So uh, but but that was kind of special just because most people don't get to do that. Uh buttons.

unknown 9:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

I have a question if I can pose it, if I can interject it right here. It's the best place because I'm thinking about it right now. Uh, is that it it's so those Spanish, I'm not familiar with the Spanish steps, I don't guess. Because I guess that if you saw Spanish steps, they'd probably be in Spain. And you'd find Italian steps in the middle, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, you would think. You'd think that. But uh but no, apparently. No, I think it was the style of the steps or something. Oh, okay. All right. I don't I don't know, but there's a lot of steps here. It's a big, huge area. You've probably seen pictures, though, haven't you?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

I think I have, but it's been a while. I hadn't thought about them in many years, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah. Well, it's a it's a good place. There's a lot of artists on there, uh, guys doing uh caricatures, and you know, there's salespeople around there and all that. It's it's just kind of a neat place. But I I don't know if I've conveyed the hair sticking up on the back of my neck, but I'm trying to, Eddie.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Yeah, it's I think it's adequate. I think you did a pretty good job.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Did any hair come up on the back of your neck while I was talking? No, not really. Oh, you're supposed to. Oh, Lord. You got any moments like that?

Paris Sunrise With Notre Dame

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Uh, I've got 17 or 18 or 20, probably, but I'm just I was just thinking about the first time I went to Europe and and I'd gotten to uh Holland, and um I was it in the Hague for a few days, you know, with that military tribunal thing that they put me through. I don't even want to talk about that, Joe.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

I don't I don't want I want to get right past that. It's we we've gotten past that, so move move on with your life.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

So anyway, the uh the Hague is I don't know if people aren't familiar with Holland, the Netherlands, which it's also called, and not many people know that. Uh maybe six, maybe six to eight people know that the Netherlands and Holland are the same thing. But anyway, I I was gonna take a uh um a side trip to Paris on the overnight on the overnight train. And I went to Amsterdam to catch the train, catching the train to Paris, and um it it it was all night, it was an all-nighter. And uh I got to Paris really early, like 5 30 or 6, and the sun was just barely up. And I had to figure out a way to get from the train station, of course, to get to um Paris, which is downtown Paris. And I think I stayed in what part was I staying in? Maybe Leall. But uh anyway, I I got to Paris and I'd gotten off the train and I asked some folks some questions about about how to get to such and such place. But I came up out of the subway station, and as soon as I walked, and uh, like I said, it was just barely, it was just barely daylight. And as I walked up out of the subway station, I saw Notre Dame. So right away, right away. So, you know, I'm in Paris, or I'm in Europe for the first time, and uh and that really caught me off guard. I thought this is this is what I'm looking at. This is me looking at this this great thing that I've read about all my life, this great edifice. You don't mind if I use the word edifice? No, no, I okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I mean, I mean it's your name. You you can use your full name if you Oedipus.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

So anyway, I I thought that's one of the most fantastic things I've ever seen in my life up to that point. And uh I I wouldn't even know how to convey it, but you can imagine six o'clock in the morning and walking up, there was a little shroud of uh shroud of uh cloud, cloud cover, not much, but just a little bit, and the sun peeked peeking through it, and it was hitting on on Notre Dame just about just about perfectly. And I and it was hard for me to even walk to where I was going because I couldn't take my eyes off it. So that was a that was a hair standing on the back of the neck situation for me. Yeah, did you go inside? I didn't go aside immediately, eventually went inside, but I just Well, I mean, I'm I'm I'm trying to get you inside.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

It was spectacular.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

You've got me inside, but was the the outside of it, which was the most spectacular part of it for me, seeing it just all of a sudden. So that was it for me, but we can talk about the inside.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

No, no, I no, I was fine. I that's one I I I've seen also. Yeah, and uh it kind of caught me by surprise because the just the location and everything. Yeah. Um but uh did you see it before the fire?

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Yeah, I was there 35 years ago, as I was saying. Um I was there 35 years ago when I first saw it up by that subway.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Okay. I saw it before the fire too, but not very long before the fire. It was you know, and I don't know if I left some kind of uh object burning or you know, dropped a cigarette or something like that, but boy, it sure, it sure looked like they were never gonna be able to rebuild that thing.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Well, speaking of that, I was there about uh three weeks after the fire. So yeah, I was there three weeks after the after the fire in Notre Dame, and it was still smoldering. You could still smell the smoke on it. So so yeah, I saw it pre-fire and post-fire. So uh in both instances, both of them could have been uh considered uh hair hair on the back raising kind of thing. Because even the post even the post-fire, you know, it was so it it was so sad. Um I I suppose that's the opposite of hair staying on the back of my neck, but in a different way it was like that also.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Well, it would be nice to see what it looks like now. Yeah. I mean, but I don't think I'm likely to ever get there again.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Oh, I'm going back. It'll be within the next three to five years. I'll be back here to see see the work done on it.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Yeah. Well, it was fantastic, and I have to agree with you. Just a really nice you know the one thing in Paris that I really didn't see? Uh Mona Lisa. The Eiffel Tower. Really? Yeah, we were so w our location was so far that we could see it just in the background, but no, we were not very close to that.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Well, that might be good enough. I mean, it's a landmark, you know, it's sort of made.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah, it is. I mean, I saw it, uh, but it it it wasn't as spectacular because I wasn't anywhere close to it. But I will say the the cab drivers and stuff, there they called it the awful tower. Uh again. They said all the all the people there hate hate it. They think it's so ugly. And it was supposed to be, you know, it was supposed to be only a temporary thing when they built it. I know.

unknown 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Well, you'd already you'd already, if I if you don't mind me saying, you'd already seen the one at King's Island in Ohio. So it there was sort of a, you know. Yeah. Well, you'd already seen that one. So it sort of took away from the real one, I would guess.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

You know where else I saw one? No. Las Vegas.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

It wasn't as spectacular as either one of those, but you could play the slides, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

So you got that play. Well, I'll I'll tell you a second one for me, and you were with me on this. Yeah.

Pamplona Festival Shock And Bulls

SPEAKER_00 17:09

It's when we went to Pampolona to run with the Bulls, and it was, you know, Barcelona was kind of a cluster with you getting robbed and all that kind of stuff, uh, pickpocketing. We talked about that in an earlier episode. If anybody wants to go back and listen to it. Uh but it by the time we got out of Barcelona, which by the way was a beautiful place. Oh, it's fabulous. Um but by the time we got out of Barcelona, we got on the bus and started our way toward Pamplona. And uh I was hurting pretty bad. I had already injured my back before we even went there. But uh so the bus ride itself was kind of difficult. But we were passing uh wind farms, lots and lots of uh you know, um some people might think that they kill birds, but some might think that. Some might think that a lot of people are saying it. But but it was fantastic going through those fields and seeing and the solar panels, they were working that energy to death. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

But those windmills weren't just a weren't just 50, they were thousands. I know thousands of windmills, yeah. So really overwhelming. Really spectacular.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

The part that was surprising to me on that trip, and we're gonna get into a detailed trip about that sometime, but the part that was uh surprising to me was when we pulled into Pamplona, and everybody was wearing their white and red, and uh so it was a whole hundreds and hundreds of people you saw in the white and red, and there was loud music playing nonstop, parades going non-stop. Uh it took me back a bit. I mean, of course, the course of running with the bulls is exciting, and that's that's one kind of thing, but I didn't really expect to get so wrapped up and made you want to run even if you hadn't planned on it.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Oh, yeah. It was a spectacle. It really was a spectacle.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Fantastic. And all the all the clubs, the people that uh, you know, pulled for certain bulls from certain farms and all that kind of stuff were there. And it really was, I mean, it was hard to sleep because the parade never stopped. How long is that festival anyway? I forgot. Two weeks. Two weeks, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Yeah, yeah, it's two weeks long. What's the name of the festival? Let's tell the audience what the name of that festival is.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah. Yeah. And we had to uh we we had to go a long way to get there. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere. Uh and I think I was so excited after running with the bulls, I thought about getting a tattoo. I've never had a tattoo. And I thought about getting a small tattoo on my uh ankle. And we went into that tattoo parlor, and when I saw how nasty that place was, that thought went away quickly. You know, I don't remember that part. Oh, you don't? Mm-mm. No. Well, you were busy uh on the computers most of the time trying to straighten out your uh money situation when you were and that probably made the hair stand up on the back of your neck as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

But it was in a foreign country without any money, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah it was fine except for that, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Except for that, yeah. Not a dime.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

But anyway, that was another one for me. It was just the the getting off the bus and the excitement of seeing everybody getting ready. You got another one for me, Eddie?

SPEAKER_02 21:17

I'm gonna have two more, and I'm hoping you have at least one more.

Lackland Base And Sudden Patriotism

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Um I I think one of the anybody that knows me knows that I'm not you wouldn't identify me as as a as an uh an army infantry man or anything like that. You wouldn't look at me and say, There goes a soldier. That guy's been a soldier in his past.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

You look like one of those little green men.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

That's right. That's that's what I was. But uh when I first got off the bus in at Lackland Air Force Base and saw the the immensity of that Air Force base, you know, and I was nineteen years old, I'm and and and I thought, this is overwhelming for me. It really, it really was. And I did literally have the hair standing up on the back of my neck. And I thought, well, you know, you think one of two or three different things. For me, it was immediately, what have I gone and done? What have I done here? But, you know, I didn't have much choice. I was getting drafted by the by the Army, and I didn't want to go. And we've discussed this before. I didn't want to go to Vietnam necessarily. So that's when I joined the Air Force, Lesser of Two Evils. And frankly, the I'm I'm a little bit, and I don't think people know this about me either. I'm a little bit patriotic, though. I'm I'm at least slightly patriotic. So when I saw that Air Force base as a 19-year-old, Lackland Air Force Base, which is arguably one of the most famous bases in in the world, it's it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck for lots of reasons. Not just because I was um I was just uh surprised by it or uh overwhelmed by it necessarily, but all of it, whatever it took, uh I mean I'm not sure what the the facets of that were, um, but I can tell you that it was one of those times for me.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah, I I get it. And especially probably the fact that it was so much bigger than you could picture in your mind.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Right, yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

It was just and the history, all the history behind it, and well that's uh yeah, that one's a little surprising because I know uh your military stuff, like you said, it was a mixed bag.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

You didn't really truly mixed, yes, it was.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

But probably pride mixed in there as well.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yep. But I'm gonna give you one that's uh what were we gonna say? A 360? No, uh 180. Let's just go 180. 180.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

180 is good.

Galapagos Wildlife And Denture Swap

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Uh I went to uh Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands. It was uh a lifetime trip. Probably the the one thing that was at the top of my list.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

So that's that's a while back, too, isn't it, Joe? Was Charles Darwin still alive?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

He was he was just wrapping up his studies when he when I was leaving. I got I got a I got a good one for you, though, about the Galapagos. Uh some of the early people that uh uh wanted to live on the Galapagos was a couple in particular, uh and I can't remember their names, but they were gonna go, they were gonna live on the island. There was, you know, there was no other people there where they were living, and they knew that it could be. You hear that dog? I do. And maybe he's telling a story. He's telling a whole different story.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Yeah, apparently.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Hold on. Yeah, we planned that. Um, this this couple that lived on the island, what I thought was kind of funny, they showed us a video, and these people decided, you know, if we go out there and we're gonna have to fix our own food and everything's gonna be us, just us making it. Um the one of the things that could really set us back is dental. You know, our our teeth could get rotten, and then we wouldn't have a dentist to take care of all that. So here was their solution. Both of them got all their teeth pulled and gut dentures. They got dentures. However, Eddie, it gets worse. On the trip, one pair of dentures got lost. So these so these people spent their time on the Galapagos Islands swapping off on teeth whenever they need to eat something. Uh you know, it's hard. I couldn't even make that story up. It it just seems impossible. But it was, it was even back then, everything was kind of left the way it was. They didn't uh if you go to the Galapagos Islands, and I would suggest you do if you got the money and time to do it, because it's not easy to get to, right? And it is pretty expensive. I mean, there are ways to do it a little cheaper, but uh it's it's not a cheap trip. Uh but what I would say about the Galapagos, the thing that surprised me the most is when we got on the boat for the first day and went to the first island, of which there's like seven that you go to. The first island, as we got to the dock, I saw crabs by the guy's feet, the guy that was gonna bring the boat in. Uh, these crabs were like beetles, they're tiny crabs. And they they were having to move them with their feet. These crabs did not skitter away like the normal crab that you see. You saw some bigger ones, and they weren't skittering away either. Why is that? There's no fear of anybody killing anybody.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

They were ready to fight, weren't they? But they were ready to stand the ground.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Well, they would they kind of did whatever crabs do, and and they really didn't pay attention to man at all. Yeah. And it was it was that moment that I go, holy crap, that and the color of the water, which is just a color that it's hard to even uh say, is greenish blue uh water that I've not seen anywhere. And the weather is like perfect there all the time.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Um I'm getting getting off on that, but that was that was kind of it for me. I mean, we saw later, we saw the boobies, we saw the uh uh all the different kinds of uh sea lions and and uh iguanas, crabs, the crabs and all that. The number of species is very small, uh, but the variations in them are very large. So it's it was really something that that whole week. Uh but yeah, and and guess what? Mary Kate and I both took our original teeth on this trip as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

You didn't you didn't have to uh uh trade off teeth?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

No, we didn't have to trade off teeth.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Well, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Don't you hate when the women have their turn with the teeth?

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Anyway,

Machu Picchu At Dawn

SPEAKER_00 28:56

another one.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah, I've got one more, and it probably should have been at the top of my list. I've sort of forgotten about it because I it's it's become old hat for me. I've been there so many times. Um is that an expression old hat? Wonder where that came from. Old hat. Well, uh anyway, uh the the the place that I'm about to tell you about, um, I've been to uh actually just twice, but um, it's the Aztec ruins, Machu Picchu in Peru. And and that was just overpowering for me too, and maybe even more overpowering than when I first saw Notre Dame coming up out of that subway um station. But when I got to Machu Picchu, I made plans to see it the very first thing the next morning, which means you're getting there by bus from this little town called Aguas Calientes, um, and you're riding up the mountainside and you're getting there right at dawn, just right at the dawn. So what you do see cloud cover on it and it lifts and the sun starts uh shining down on it a little bit. And that's that it that's all it was for me at least almost a religious experience. Yeah. And and I remember thinking, this is something that I want to try to remember, you know, uh all my life, if I can, of course. Um, but as soon as I walked you, they let you out and you walked to this precipice. That's a lot that's like a hill, Joe, in case you don't know what a precipice is.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

I thought it was I thought it was the I thought the precipice is like a cliff.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

It's a jutting out thing. It's part of a cliff, which is normally on the side of a mountain if you think about it. So this is a jutting out place from a mountain called the cliff that's a precipice. So anyway, uh I was standing there on the precipice there, and uh, I was looking out over it, and I was I was actually the first one off the bus, and I walked straight to it. I thought, I'm gonna you know, I'm sort of competitive like that anyway. I I wanted to be the first one to walk up there. And um anyway, it was a fabulous, fabulous experience for me. And and it it it wasn't any less spectacular when I went back the second time. And and I would bet that even seeing it for a third or fourth or fifth, however many times I go back, which I have no idea what how many that'll be. Maybe I'm done with Machu PQ. But um, I could I could even leave a tour there, probably. I could get you there. Um, but I'm probably I I could go back, but if I don't, I'll have that memory etched in my mind, I hope forever.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

You know, you said you said you wanted to be the first, and you were very competitive, but I hate to tell you there'd been other people there.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

I was the first that day off the bus in that dawn era on that precipice, I was the first one to walk up on that spot.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Okay, all right, all right.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Yeah, uh there's been the Aztecs, as a matter of fact, are the first yeah Yeah, don't forget they were there.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Hey, let me ask you this. I know, I know it made the hair stand up on the and and you had kind of a religious experience. Is any of that have anything to do with the fact there's no air up there?

SPEAKER_02 32:14

That might have a little bit to do with it.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yeah, yeah. It's a a tough place to get to, and I've seen pictures, and I I'm jealous about that. I really would like to.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

But get this, I'd already passed out in Cusco because of the out because uh um because of the altitude. I'd already passed out in Cusco on the cobblestone streets. So when I went to the doctor, they gave me two canisters of oxygen. So I had a canister of oxygen with me that I was breathing out of part of the time while I was up there, which is a pretty picture if you can think about it.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Yeah, oh yeah. I'm picturing it right now. Uh well, you know, it is it's fantastic, and I, you know, I know that some of the places we've been sound pretty spectacular. I

Travel While You Still Can

SPEAKER_00 33:04

can tell you, I never traveled anywhere uh outside the U.S. and not even that much inside the U.S. till I was nearly 50 years old. So I just uh, you know, little by little you can plan things and see stuff. And if you have a desire to catch a glimpse of any of these things, I would, you know, not that not that that's the only thing. Hell I went to the I'm so interested in horse racing that I went to the Epsom Derby, and uh that was actually my first ship out of the U.S. And then I and that was in uh England at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

And you were 50 years old. You were 50 years old by that time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Yeah. And then a few years later I went to Ireland and watched the Irish Derby, and and that was you know, that was another one that was just very thrilling. Uh, but wherever you travel, whenever you get away from where you are, just briefly, it makes you do two things. You you really realize the world is spectacular. You there's so many places to see, and you come home and you realize your home is pretty nice too.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

That's that's true. Well, I I I think I I do want to say this before we get um we have get off the air here or or uh close. Um that if you can do a lot of traveling while you're young. I re I I understand that it's a matter of wherewithal in a certain circumstances, but once you get to be old, you might have the wherewithal, the financial wherewithal, but you've gotten too tired and too beaten up to do any real traveling. So do it when you're in your 20s, do it when you're in your 30s, do it when you're in your 40s, and just keep doing it.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Yeah, and and don't wait until you're looking at your bird feeder camera and going, holy crap, where did that guy come from? I'd take him with me, but it wouldn't be fun for either one of us. All right, Eddie, get us out of here. All righty, see you, Joe. All right.