June 21, 2016 • 43 mins
In the late 1970s, a Jeep enthusiast named Mark A. Smith gathered several like-minded adventurers and set about on a wildly ambitious journey -- to drive from the tip of South America all the way to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. So how far did they get? Tune in to find out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to the show. I'm Scott and I'm Ben. As always,
we are joined by our super producer Noldie Explorer Brown.
And Uh, today we're going. Uh, we're going a little
(00:24):
bit further from the US, not too far, eventually crossing through.
Eventually we're making our way. We're mosing on down. What
are we talking about today, Scott, Today is the I'll
give you the Spanish name, Ben, It's the Expedition on
Danas Americas. And for those of us who do not
have Scott's polyglot skills, that is the Expedition of the America's. Yes,
(00:49):
I'm sure everybody kind of picked up on that, but
this is something happened back in ninety nine. And this
was a suggestion from a listener named Ben h Out
of North care Lina and Ben wrote in a long
time ago, So I hope Ben still listening. This is
one of those ones that we picked up in our
um Nuts and Bolts, or maybe it was a listener
mail episode. I think we did where we caught up
(01:11):
from a long time ago, months and months ago. And
Uh and this is one of those topics, and I
thought this was an amazing story. This really, this is
this could be like an epic tale. Really. However, we're gonna,
you know, keep it brief and we'll we'll let you
investigated a little bit on your own as well, because
there is a there's a twenty seven minute I think
that documentary on this whole thing, this whole trip, from
(01:33):
beginning to end. It's well done. It's very nineteen seventies,
the narration and the music and it almost has some
folk music along the way that was written specifically for this.
Um it's it's an interesting watch. So if you get
a chance to to watch the video that goes along
with this, please do. You can find it on YouTube
or the Mayo or a lot of those places. Um
but let's let's just let's start right from the beginning,
(01:55):
ben because um, well, you know what tome about this, Alright,
we'll just tell everybody what it's all about first, and
then we'll just start him to begin and tell him,
like come some of the hardships that they had along
the way. Um. So, so the idea is that this
group of guys, that these these off road enthusiasts Um,
none are really professional. I don't think. Um. They are
going to take on the Pan American Highway from beginning
(02:17):
to end. And not only that they're gonna go, they're
gonna extend it a little bit more. They're gonna go
a slightly different route because they want to go from
the southernmost tip of the America's which is way way
way down in um Chile. Right, Yeah, it's in Chile.
That's right. It's uh, it's Tierra del Fuego, Chile, which
is the southernmost point of the of South America. And
then they were gonna go all the way north to
Prudeho Bay and that's the north well roughly the northernmost
(02:41):
part of North America that you can get to close
enough for government work. This is a team of fourteen
intrepid off roads led by a gentleman named Mark A. Smith. Yeah,
Mark Smith. Now Mark is a well, he's a he's
an off road enthusiast. And I have to read maybe
a description of who this guy is just so you
get an idea of of what he's up to here.
(03:01):
But he's he's the founder of what we know as
the jeep Jamboree way back way back in the nineteen fifties,
and it was just kind of started because he loved jeeps.
He liked he liked driving them. So, um, let's see,
here's here's a here's maybe the best description of him.
He's the son of a miner, and he grew up
in Nevada and San Francisco, so he I think mostly
mostly in San Francisco area. Um. He served time as
(03:23):
a marine near the end of World War Two where
he drove his first Jeep. So at the end of
World War Two, that's his very first experience. And in
nineteen fifty one he settled in Georgetown, California, and he
worked as a logger and a sheriff and eventually went
into real estate. He founded the Jeepers Jamboree in nineteen
fifty three, so he's been doing a long time at
this point. We've talked about Jeep Jamboree on the show before.
(03:43):
I think we have in camp Cheep and all those
other Jeep one oh one, and there's a lot of
off road activities around or or um gatherings I guess
around the Jeep brand and other off road brands too,
but Jeep seems to have this this uh this huge,
huge following, and it goes all the way back to
the nineteen fifty when he organized the Jeepers Jamboree and
I think that eventually just became the Jeep Jamboree. Yeah,
(04:06):
and then it really took off in a fifty four
when Willie's Motors got involved. Yeah, that's right, and so
you know, it's like a worldwide thing now. I mean
people come from all over the world. And he continued
to sponsor and drive jeep events all across the country
for another six decades after after you know, he initially
did this in the nineteen fifties. So, uh, it's been along.
You know, he's been around doing this a long time.
(04:27):
He's he's not around anymore, but I believe he passed away,
and I think it wasteen when when Mark passed away.
But we're talking about something that happened about forty years
ago now, so he was not a young guy even
then when he did this. He was even an older guy,
not one of the oldest on the trip, because the
trip had a wide range of of ages went from
(04:47):
I think one guy was nineteen who took this truck
with him, and another guy was in his mid sixties
and then everything in between and from all different walks
of life. But like I said, none of these guys
were really considered, like I guess professional roads. Yeah, he
passed away at the age of eighties seven. It was
June ninth, two thousand fourteen. And you know what, You're
(05:11):
gonna find a lot of photos of him standing next
to uh, at least one of those jeeps from from this, uh,
this excursion we're talking about, and they're they're red c
J seven's, So I mean, even as an old timer,
he's he's still around the Jeep product. And I'm sure
that he was driving, probably right up until the day
he died. Almost you know, this is that's his kind
of thing, it's his lifestyle. But what a trip these
guys took back in nine oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So
(05:35):
this is around about twenty thousand miles of road of
travel and and you'll see why I see travel instead
of road all the way, because that's at times the
definition gets stretched and at times it doesn't apply. So
they took all Jeep c J models and left nine
(05:55):
seventy eight one of the most epic road trips in history.
And you know, we loved who explore road trips. Uh, Scott,
you mentioned some of the you alluded to some of
the trials and travails the group would encounter in their journey,
and let's get one of these out of the way.
Depend on how you want to do this, we have
(06:17):
to mention Darien's Gap. Oh sure, Darien's Gap. So the
Pan American Highway is a fascinating thing and if you
ever get the chance to travel it, first take it,
you know, even if you can't go all the way.
It's a network of roads that's about ninety thousand miles
(06:37):
in total length and it links up almost all of
the countries in North and South America. But there's one
place in that road, and it's called Darien Gap. Yeah,
the Darien Gap. Now, this is an interesting bit of
terrain here because this is uh was we set as
jungle at swamp. It's really it's almost like impenetrable jungle. Really,
(07:00):
it's it's very very dense. Even you can't really walk
across this. And here are these guys with six jeeps
and fourteen people and they're gonna try to make their
way through, right, this is some nasty territories to try
to drive through. It's it's beautiful from a naturalist perspective,
but when it comes to a road trip, it's one
(07:21):
of the one of the biggest pains in the Key
Star you could imagine. It's located. It's located in Central America,
in the northern portion of Colombia and into Panama, and
it's super expensive to try to build roads here or
even a lot of development that would not be unreasonable
(07:44):
in other places. Is is very difficult and the environmental
cost is very is very tough. Add to that the
fact that this would have to span across these two
countries in that area, and there's a political part to
it as well. So this is the infamous missing link
of the Pan American Highway. Yeah, it's a place where
(08:07):
they're not going to pay if they're not going to
put a bridge in, they're not going to not going
to cut a way through there. And the reason are
there reasons I should say that they're not going to
do that, um, And it's kind of controversial. They've actually
kind of started to do that and then and then
backed it down. That was back in the early nineteen seventies,
like nineteen seventy one, I think, or at least the
planning stages. UM. They halted it in nineteen seventy four
(08:27):
after environmentalist raised some concerns. I think it was, you know,
just about cutting down the jungle, you know, getting cutting
a way through there and allowing traffic to go through
that area. UM. Another effort to build the build a
road through there began around nineteen by UH the u
N United Nations Agency reported that the road and the
subsequent development that would go along with it would cause
(08:49):
extensive environmental damage. So again environmental damage. They tried about
twenty years apart to do it, but they got you know,
pushed back again. And then another reason this is this
is maybe one of the better reasons for them not
to not do this, I think. And of course the
environmental is important, but listen to this, Ben there's evidence
that the dairying gap has prevented the spread of disease
(09:10):
cattle into Central and Northern America because it's a complete block.
You can't get through there. So they have not seen
foot and mouth disease since nineteen fifty four, and at
least since the nineteen seventies. It's been a substantial factor
in preventing the road going through the Daring gap. So
it's not just um, you know that they don't want
to cut down the jungle. They don't want to put
pavement where there wasn't pavement before. Uh, they are they're
(09:32):
concerned about getting foot and mouth disease, you know, with
with with cattle crossing back and forth. So it's a
smart move I think on their part. Um, also there's
the potential erosion of the indigenous people's culture. You know that.
You know that, um that right now keeps them separate,
and that is in a way that's good. I mean,
of course it's always good to integrate a bit, you know,
(09:53):
but um, this is it's also going to erode that
that that culture is going to um uh what am
I looking for? It's going to it's gonna assimilate it all.
It's gonna assimilate the people in some way, it could
lead to exploitation, because unfortunately, what we've seen throughout history
is that when there are native populations, native people's living
(10:19):
in that kind of isolation, the modern world often has
um dangerous effects. You know. Dilute that was the word
I was looking, Yeah, dilute the culture, I guess in
a in a way, well, yeah, that's part of it,
but it can also lead to uh dying out of
a language. It can also lead to uh exploitation of
(10:40):
individuals for various purposes. So there could be like a
disease factor exactly just not the immunity to the same
things exactly right. And so there's a lot of issues
with that. And again, this this Darian gap bit here,
we're focusing on that right now. But prior to this
there's ten thousand miles of travel, and then after this
(11:02):
there's another ten thousands. So this is an important thing here.
This this this daring gap, they said, is kind of
like the crux of the whole expedition. And like to
just look at this, I mean to look at the
wall of jungle that they had to drive into. It
is incredible. So how did they do it? How do
they get jeep vehicles through this jungle that, oh, by
the way, it had been crossed only once before prior
(11:24):
to this, and there was a British army I believe
that did it on foot. It took the months of
time to get this army through there, and they lost
a lot of men. They uh, they had a significant
death toll uh as they tried to get through and
also they had a lot of um well, I guess
um illnesses from mosquito bites and you know, things like
that along the way. So it was very almost like
a crippling journey for them to get through. And these
(11:45):
guys are gonna try to do it in a in
a short short amount of time with jeeps, and they
did it in just thirty days. They crossed it in
thirty days with the help of indigenous tribes and the
Colombian army. Now that's important because these guys were the
ones that walked out front with machetes and hand cut
the old you know, undergrowth away and the vines and
all that, you know, left behind some of the bigger
trees and things for you know, those guys to cut down.
(12:08):
But they were chopping this, you know, this trail. They
knew exactly how wide they had to cut it, now
high they had to cut it. They made a tunnel
pretty much through the jungle and allowed them to drive through.
And we're talking like sometimes just yards at a time,
I mean, I mean during the day. Right, this is
a very dense area. And these were stock jeeps. These
were just regular c J sevans, they weren't they didn't
(12:29):
have a whole saying is they didn't have a whole
bunch of I don't know what you would imagine when
you think of jungle modifications. You know, A good point, man,
because they like they didn't have the factory, um, you know,
build them special equipment. That's maybe the best way. They
like stock. Yeah they were stock, I agree, but they
had thirty one in tires. They also had I'm sure
they had some reinforcements in area that they themselves put on,
(12:51):
but it was pretty much stock jeeps. So they head
out and they've got this an incredible sense of adventure
and that they're just just like the the epitome of
boy scout mentality on the prepared thing right, Like they're
they're prepared for everything. They've got these special built ladders
that are on top of the vehicles. They've got um um.
Of course welding equipment is on board because I think
they didn't end up breaking an axle while they were
in the in the jungle. Uh, they use winches to
(13:14):
pull themselves up bridges when they can't drive up because
these are steep. They're they're going over washes and things,
you know, they can't get over and so what they
do is they would cut away the undergrowth, lay down
these these metal looks like they look like ladders almost.
I think they were aluminium, I think, or maybe not
they were. They were lightweight. They would lay down these
aluminum ladders and they would drive over them their special
belt of course, you know, to with still and with
(13:34):
stand the weight. But they would almost become engineers in
a way. And the way that they figured out how
to how to make these ladders work to get over
these sometimes thirty foot deep washes, sometimes there were five feet,
you know they were. They were varying in size that
they across this jungle area. But what a trek, I mean.
And to watch them do that, it's really pretty clever
how they did. It's almost like those trucks that would
lay out the road in front of them. You have
(13:55):
to move slowly. And surely also they didn't cross They
make the entirety of the gap by traveling on land.
They spent a lot of time traveling by barge across
what's known as the Atrato Atrato River in Columbia. Yeah,
so they went on barge. And I also saw if
you if you watch this this film and I encourage
(14:15):
you to watch it. It's again twenty seven minutes, but
it's it's really interesting. Part of this the way across
one of the rivers, and I don't think it was
in the gap. I think it was maybe somewhere else
out you know, maybe in Mexico somewhere or something. But um,
this is so interesting. They would drive they had to
course hack a trail down to the river bank and
drive down, and then they laid those uh, those those
ladders that I was telling you about, you know, the
(14:37):
ones that they drive over. They laid them across canoes.
You have to picture like maybe three canoes, really long,
dugout type canoes, you know, like almost like um, like
tree trunks, you know, but really long, three of them
in a row, and you would drive across them. It's
not not you know, with them, but across them on
those ladders, and then people would get in the water
and then push the canoes sideways across the river to
(14:59):
get them a cross and then they would drive off
the ladders and on the other side. Is brilliant. And
I don't know if I would trust I mean, looking
at what they were floating on, I don't know if
I trust the weight of a full jeep on there
because it's loaded down with all of their expedition equipment
to all the food, all the water filtration stuff. You know. Um,
they're they're heavy. They're not really lightweight vehicles. Um, I
(15:20):
don't know. To me. That was one of those things
that just really stood out in this in this film
is like, man, these guys are just so clever about
how they're getting across. They had to have had that
planned out well ahead of time, right. This is a
slowly but surely wins the race kind of strategy, which is,
as we can see, the only one that will work there.
Before we talk more about the different things they faced,
(15:41):
I gotta tell you, I know I jumped straight to
Darien's Gap, but it's because it's a fascinating patch of land.
I mean, it's big to call the patch. But Scott,
there's another thing we didn't talk about, which is that
on a personal, like a social level, Darien's Gap is dangerous.
It is it is Uh. It's been described as a
(16:03):
refuge for the lawless because it's impenetrable. Yeah, well, because
it's you know, not impenetrable. But it's great. It's a
great hideout. Yeah, it's a great hideout actually, yeah. And
you can you can read different depictions of some of
the settlements or areas and there. One in particular is
(16:24):
a place called ya Visa, which is famous for being lawless.
It's it's described as get this man, a magnet for fugitives, poachers,
and bootleggers. Now you Visa is on the north end.
That's exactly, that's the last I guess. That's the town
where the road ends in the gap begins and the
other side. You know what the name of the one
is on the south side. What's one of the south
(16:45):
side of Turbo, Turbo. It's named Turbo. Yeah, you u
r b O Turbo. Yeah, it's an interesting name. But
so they traveled between Turbo and Visa through this jungle
and as we said, they were hacking away all this
stuff in along the way. And you said, it's day
interesting through there as well. Totally get that. They said
mosquitoes were a constant issue for them. Uh, you know,
(17:06):
the temperatures, Oh my gosh, we don't even talk about
temperatures up to like a hundred and five degrees during
the day. And then uh, you know, of course humidity
is for our international friends. And that's a hundred and
five degrees fahrenheit and humidity was nearly one the entire time.
So this trip had to be pretty miserable on these
guys along the way. And oh we didn't also say this.
(17:28):
As they were chopping, you know, they would chop a
few yards at a time and just some some days
they would only go maybe five feet at the most,
and other days as they got this rhythm going, as
they figured out, you know, the choppers knew just how
much to cut down and what they needed. They got
a better rhythm going and they could go then go
you know, three, four or even five miles a day,
which was a huge jump because we're talking about, you know,
(17:49):
covering a pretty good distance here. So um and by
the time they got to the end of it, you know,
when they're when they're exiting, the trail on the south
side was already overgrown again. It was gone. There's no
more trade else. It's not like, you know, this trail
was going to remain for a long time or I
did any permanent damage. Uh, the jungle healed itself so
quickly that there was no trace of them anymore. On
(18:09):
the south side that's incredible to me. It took what
thirty one days? I said that voracious, Yeah, thirty one
days to get through there. So it gives an idea
of just how quickly this, uh, this thing can heal itself.
It's it's really remarkable. I bet, I bet if you
did build a highway through their maintenance, like just daily
maintenance would be unbelievable. It's almost like when they build
a um a highway through desert or something and you
(18:32):
have to watch the sand blowing over, like almost like
snow would drift over a road. And there's another consideration
to with the road construction there, which is that, well,
here's the best way you put the dilemma is this.
It is possible, at great expense to build a road
through that area. However, to build a road through that
(18:56):
area that would last and be drivable, you would have
to you would have to raise parts of it, you
know what I mean, like so the earth with salt
kind of stuff, and you would have to destroy a
vast amount of it to make it happen, because you
essentially one way or the other, you'd be cutting it
in a half. I just love about all this. I mean,
(19:17):
along the way they really, I mean they knew sort
of what to expect, but they didn't know everything, you know.
So they set out, these these these fifteen guys, they
set out and they all have to be just excellent
problem solvers, and they all have to count on each other.
They all have to to know that the other ones
got their back. They all have to really like trust
one another in order to make this work. Because if
if one person isn't pulling their weight, or if they're
(19:40):
not doing what they're supposed to do, or they give
up or they're you know, they get homesick and they
want to stop the thing or whatever, game over. It
is because all these guys they're just like I mean
just in general, they're just people from ordinary walks of life.
I mean, they have jobs, they have families. The families,
you know, in a lot of cases just said just
go do it. When are you ever going to have,
you know, four months opportunity to to do something like
(20:02):
this ever again in your life, and you're gonna get
to see all of all of the America's do it,
you know, just go. So they had a lot of
support in their families, um, you know, and and the
camaraderie between the guys on this trip. You're gonna see
that in that film too, just how well they get
along at the end of the trip. You would think
that maybe there's a little, you know, a little friction
between them, but if they were happy, they were happier
(20:22):
than ever. At the end. They were. They were just
they were almost sad to have to, you know, go
back to their normal lives, as I can imagine, you know,
going back to work would be a little difficult after
something like this, But at the end, they were just
super happy that they had done it. They were they
were excited about, you know, these lifelong friends now that
they had made um and again it all worked out
perfectly in the end. They would they worked together well,
(20:45):
they all were excellent problem solvers. It was it's just
an interesting time for all of them, I'm sure, and
it's and it's fun for us to look at and
read about. While they were in the gap, they had
to use a filtration system to get water, and they
lived on like freeze dry fruit and stuff. Well they
have vegetables and meat, but they had to bring their
(21:06):
own rations. As the point, well for that part of it, yeah,
because the other rest of the time they're in they're
stopping in towns and things. Right, Yeah, they go through
you know, they go through Costa Rica, Panama City. You know,
they go through places that are inhabited. Um, but that
it's still there's still some things that they have to
(21:27):
deal with, right, like crushing temperatures. Well, there are many
parts of the trip. Yeah, well, okay, the hundred and
five degrees in the in the gap, but then when
you get up to Prude Obey, it's it's fifty below zero.
So they've got to be prepared for all that too.
Like the difference in temperatures. They said, you know, just
that example right there, one hundred and five to fifty
below with a wind chill. They said, that's like a
(21:48):
hundred and fifty five degrees in variants. You know that
they have to deal with on this one trip. And
I know it's you know, some time on park because
this whole thing took one hundred and twenty two days.
And think about the effects on the engines too. Oh yeah,
the equipment. That's gonna be extremely difficult on them. And
but but as I said, you know, they ended up
this whole thing with with one broken axle, and I
think that happened in the gap because I saw them
(22:09):
welding on that on that film and five flat tires
that's it between all six jeeps, all fifteen guys. They
kept the equipment in such good shape that that that
it worked out really well, which is a bargain when
you think about it, it really is. I mean you
almost expect that in your your family sedan if you're
gonnaously injured, that's right. Oh yeah, that this thing is
like no one really like they're there are no fatalities.
(22:30):
There were no you know, nobody had to be hauled
off the hospital or anything like that. It was that's true. No,
I mean, it all seemed to go really well. I
mean they had they had they had planned for everything,
and I'm sure there was some you know, cuts and
bruises and scrapes along the way, but that's just the
way it worked because there again in the gap. But
keep going back to the gap stuff, because that's the
most interesting part of this whole thing really took to me. Anyways,
(22:52):
we'll talk about some other regions in a moment that
maybe interest other people, but um, they were using their
own bodies as you know, ballast to wait in the jungle,
you know, to get over some of these uh these
ridges and you know, through the washes and things. So
you'll see footage of you know, guys hanging on and
suddenly the you know, the jeep will jerk violently to
the right and everybody falls off to the left, you know,
into the onto the jungle floor, but no one gets like,
(23:14):
you know, broken bones or anything like that along the way.
Would you do this? Would I do this? Right now?
I probably wouldn't with you know, the family situation, But
if I if younger, if I was a younger Scott Benjamin, Yes,
I would, Yeah, I would, I would do it. I
have to refer to yourself in third person. Oh okay, okay,
so you would say, right now, that's not Scott. I
(23:36):
would absolutely. I would absolutely sign onto something like this,
especially if I could get the time off work, or
maybe I could just record remotely. What do you think, Scott?
Can I I'll do my side of it from a
from a jeep like the jungle satellite phone. Why why not?
If they can do it from Everest, you might as
well do it from there, right? Why not? Why not? Alright?
(23:59):
So how about let's let's back it up just a
little bit because we said, you know, the gap is
really fascinating. It's it's interesting stuff, and that's probably the
most to talk about there really. But when they left
the southernmost tip, you know, down in Chile, they had
some serious territory across there as well. I mean, they
were again ten thousand miles to get to the Gaps.
So when they left, you know, the first few days
(24:21):
were somewhat easy compared to the rest of the trip,
and it was you know, cruising right along. But let's
get this out of the way too. They had to
cross the Andies Mountains three times before they got to
the gap, so you know, one of the one of
the crossings is almost right away, and uh, you know,
it's still again relatively easy. It's beautiful scenery along the way.
But they're traveling something like four hundred, five hundred, even
(24:41):
six hundred miles each day at first. So you know,
by the time they get to day six, I think, um,
you know, they're they're still in They're still in Chile,
I believe at that point. Um, But they meet up
with like, you know, Chilean cowboys and they're you know,
having barbecues with them, and you know, trying to really
soak in the culture along the way. They're not just
driving through and you know, not really paying attention to
what's happening around. And they they're getting the culture, they're
(25:02):
they're getting the scenery. By day thirteen, they're back in
the Andes Mountains again, these again huge mountains. This is
the second time. UM, really challenging at this point though
in that second the second crossing to stay on schedule,
because UM, at this point, you gotta imagine what it's
like to trail six miles every day in a ged
vehicle with you know, two or three other guys. It's
(25:23):
gotta be it's gotta be tough. I mean, it's it's
a real test of endurance. UM. Maybe not quite as
tough as like, you know, the guys that ride the
thousand mile thousand miles a day for two weeks or whatever.
Remember the Iron Butt Rally. Remember that, maybe it's not
that difficult, but it's it's got to be pretty tough
on them. And knowing that they've got another on a
hundred and ten days ahead of them, that's tough. That's
(25:44):
tough to stomach something like that. But uh, they did it.
They stuck with it, and by day twenty one they
had left the mountains behind and they were in the
Ottacama Desert. And this is described as the land that
God forgot And the reason you know this, so it
took them two days. But the reason they say that
is because there's zero life in the Atacama Desert, this
(26:06):
plateau in South America, it's it's a strip of land.
It's the driest let me see if I can qualify
this correctly, the driest non polar desert in the world.
It's just absolutely barren. There's just nothing there. And when
I said lifeless, I mean that, I mean they search
for life on this all the time. They were not
all the time, but they did, and there's nothing, no
(26:29):
plant life, no animal life, nothing. It's just this barren
waste land. And they crossed that for it takes them
two days to get across that. So no oasis in sight,
you know, midway or anything like that. But driving you know,
long long distances. I don't know. If they're covering four
or five or six hundred miles a day and they're
driving two days across this thing, that's gonna be a
huge desert area. I don't know that the distance that
(26:49):
that that was or not. But after they after they
left that, uh, they were onto Peru, and of course
that meant crossing the Andes for the third time, which
again interesting here, this is something interesting here. I thought
they had stayed together through the whole thing, but I
found out watching that film that they actually broke up
into smaller groups. They decided that they were going to
choose an adventure when they got into the Peru area.
(27:12):
So so they had three groups and one went to
One group went to Lake Titicaca, which is a a
what's it's a lake that's twelve thousand feet in the
air in the Andes mountains. I didn't know it was
that high. Another group went to Machu Picchu, which is
a what's like a deserted city right from the fifteenth century,
the Lost City of the Inca. I mean, I think
everybody knows what is. Yeah, they rediscovered it again in
(27:35):
nineteen eleven. I think it was um And then another
group went to um Iguassu Falls, which is just an
enormous waterfall right there in the Andes regions. So I
thought that was interesting. They joined back up again when
they got to Bogata, Bogota, Columbia, and they were still
or I guess you should say this, they were at
(27:56):
that point, they were ten thousand miles away from the
starting point. So it's been a long journey. I but
they joined back up again in the city, and I
would guess they kind of got themselves together because the
next step here would be carrying gap. This is really
the crucible in which the group proves its metal and
under undergoes the test. As we said in the beginning,
(28:16):
they do make it through without any grievous injury, and
the forests swallows their path behind them, what thirty one days?
Thirty one days, and they still have another ten thousand
miles to go, Yeah, ten ten thousand miles north. But
see now at this point they're they're in Central America,
(28:38):
and they're traveling through a region where you used to
live for a while. They're gonna go through Guatemala is
one of the one of the places right they go through.
I should just say they go through Panama City, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala,
and then through Mexico. So have you ever been on
the Pan American Highway? How be you have? I don't
believe I have Scott. Unfortunately you were in so you're
(28:58):
in Guatemala, but you're in a different part of guatem
all as it ran through there. I've I've had the
good fortune to be on just a little bit of this.
I happened to notice it while I was on a
bus or something, you know, going somewhere. I don't remember
where I was in um, I was in Coaster. I've
been in Costa Rica, so I think I might have
been on it twice, but just again, very brief bits
of time, you know, like near the airport or something.
(29:20):
So nothing, you know, no adventure or anything like that.
Nothing like what these guys are up to. And then
after they get out of Mexico, Ben and there's got
there's gotta be kind of a sense of relief once
they crossed over into the United States. And that's because
these were all Americans. I don't know if we mentioned
that before, but it's kind of like a homecoming, you know,
It's like you get a little bit homesick for the
way of life that you're accustomed to, really, and and
that's that's what they experienced just as they crossed and
(29:42):
over because they had a big cook out they had,
you know, hamburgers and baked beans and stuff like that.
You know, they had a big campfire looking uh um,
almost looked like a chuck wagon and pulled up or
something to feed them. It was. It was not exactly that,
but it was like an American style homecoming, right, Okay,
So they were all happy and and they still got
a long way to go because they're headed up towards
(30:02):
um head it up towards Alaska. Yeah, through British Columbia.
You're gonna go all the way up. You and know
that I'm thinking about it, just to go back to it.
I'm kind of bummed Scott that I lived in guatemal
and didn't go, And you know what, I didn't mean
to bring up a store issue, so I apologize. But
is it possible that I may have and not recognized.
(30:23):
That's That's what I'm thinking, I think because it cuts
right through there, and you did a lot of bus
travel and stuff while you were there, right, I mean
you did some some you got a round a bit
later there. It wasn't like you were in one village
or something, right, No, No, I did. I did a
little bit of traveling. You know what. I'm just gonna
tell myself that I was on it and I didn't
recognize it, and then I'll go back. I'm willing to
bet that you at some point we're on it and
(30:45):
didn't realize it, because that's what happened to me. And
the only reason I saw it was because I could
see out the front window and read a road sign. Well,
I was young, but I still feel like I would
have known. Yeah, well maybe okay, hopefully hopefully you were
hopefully yes, hopefully, Like you said us, just tell ourselves.
You can tell yourself maybe that you're all right, fair enough. So,
(31:05):
so they're headed up through um like the up to
the northern border, I guess, with Canada, through British Columbia,
and then into Yukon territory, uh, you know on you know,
I guess we could even describe that whole road along
the way. Well that's another podcast there. But once they
get up into Alaska, they go have to go through
another mountain range at the northern end of Alaska called
(31:26):
the Brooks Range, and then from you know, from there,
of course you know, onto Bruto Obey. But when they
were in the Brooks Range, I guess they had extremely
heavy snow that they didn't expect that. They knew it
was gonna be snowy, but they didn't expect it to
be quite as snowy as it was. Um. They said,
the visibility is cut down to something like twenty five
ft at one point, and again the temperature is fifty
below zero with a wind chills, so it's an extreme situation.
(31:49):
But the the equipment held up, the jeeps were fine. Um,
and then they made it. I mean, there was no
real drama you know, from that snowstorm or anything other
than just trying to get through it with every together
all in one time. But when they got to Bruto Obey,
it looked like it was extremely bitter cold, and they
were all celebrating, of course, you know, because they had
made their finish their journey. Um. Then there's like kind
(32:11):
of the sort of a sad part and the whole
the whole film where all the guys are, you know,
congratulating each other. But then they later you know, you
can tell this is it's not in Alaska, of course,
you know, they're they're back wherever they are and uh
doing interviews standing next to the jeeps and they're they're
talking about the trip and they're all a bit sad
to return to daily life and have to go back
to work again after nearly five months off, or it
(32:33):
wasn't nearly four months. I think it's nearly four more months.
Hund twenty two days. They've traveled twenty one thousand miles together,
solved all these issues together, they've become lifelong friends. They're
they're they have a good relationship with each other. So, um,
now I can see where this would be a huge
letdown to have to just kind of scatter and go
your own way. At that point, you'd want to kind
(32:54):
of you'd want to continue the adventure, like, Hey, everybody,
let's let's go uh, let's go to the East side
of Canada. And we've all felt this, uh in some
form or another when you're done with let's say, listeners
out there who are still school age when you have
to go back to school at the end of summer,
(33:15):
or you know, camp is over, something like that. And
to make the comparison with like a class trip, Yeah,
a class trip, that's a great that's a great comparison
to because you get the camaraderie in their bond their
form that you know you're having a great time and
you don't want it to end. And it's only a
weekend or maybe it's a week or whatever, but you
just don't want to end. You'd like it to continue on.
But if it did, you know it might not turn
(33:37):
and right, And I guess family vacations could be another comparison,
but that really depends on how you feel about your family,
which is none of our business. Good point, that can
go either way, right, Yeah, so, uh, what's so fascinating
I think about Mark Smith is both his enterprising and
trepid nature, but also his devotion to jeeps. Man. Oh yeah,
(33:58):
lifelong devotion. I mean from the moment he drove one
winning in nineteen well the end of World War two,
so in the forties, um, and and then he did
it for decades after that, and he's always pictured next
to jeeps, so we know that for you know, six
decades after that he maintained that love of the jeep
product and his his role as a leader like in
Crossing Rubicon Trail and Jeep Jamborees and all that he was.
(34:20):
He was a part of that whole thing right up
until probably right when he died. And as the Templar
said to Indiana Jones, he's well, to paraphrase the templar, uh,
Mark chose wisely because look, guys, I love minding Carlos,
but there's not a way I'm getting that thing through
the dairy and gap, you know. Uh yeah, so money
(34:43):
Carlo couldn't go there, A lot of cars couldn't. And
that includes there's a bit of silver lining. Honda Odysse's
oh that's true. He will not encounter on to Odyssey
if you were somewhere in the dairy and game one
of its main selling points, Well, maybe you should. It's
maybe where she camp out. Of course, it's it's full
of the and robberts, right, I guess maybe on the edges,
but you know, it's it's pretty sparsely populated in the interior.
(35:06):
So yeah, it's one of those places where go a
long time without seeing a person. But also, you know, uh,
also when we when we think about it's amazing sense
of adventure and again the fact that these were not specialized,
one off built vehicles. It's it's pretty inspiring to realize
(35:29):
just what people are capable of when they when they
set their minds to a goal. And I love that
you mentioned you know, there had to be a bit
of sadness, and you know, they're probably proposals to like, hey,
let's let's go start at the tip of Russia of
Siberian Russia, do it again and drive across, which would
(35:50):
be a very different trip. Yeah, at sure would. Yeah,
there's that. It's a thing like this is a this
is its own unique thing. And honestly, if you want
to get the best feel for the story, and I
hope that most of our podcasts are like this for
you that and when we describe something or try to
describe something, we're doing our best, you know, the best
we can with the medium that we have. But um,
(36:10):
if we had video to go along with us, I'd
be able to show you some incredible footage from this
this trip, and you should search it out and look
for it. I mean if even if you just you know,
skim through real quick and look at a little bit
of it here and there. But I do I do
recommend watching the whole thing. It's twenty seven minutes long,
and it really gives you the beginning to end of
this whole journey and what they had to go through,
(36:30):
and and it's in their own words, a lot of them,
you know, there's there's footage taking along away, some really
great footage, some spectacular footage of you know, the scenery
and the trials and tribulations they had to go through
in the gap. It's just it's it's amazing. It's really
it's really well done. And again nineteen seventies, late nineteen seventies,
early nineteen eighties, So be kind to it in the
comments with that, but it looks very seventies. We can
(36:52):
probably post that up on social media as well. If
I don't check it out, there's a YouTube link. I
don't see why not I can do that. And then
this also makes me think of a question for you
ladies and gentlemen. Do you have a dream road trip?
And if so, what what is it? It doesn't have
to be you know, spanning two continents in what seventeen countries.
(37:16):
It can be, Uh. It can be as as simple
as you know, like my dream road trip is to
go to my grandfather's house, or to drive to the
Grand Canyon or something. Uh. In in my case from
my dream road trips, which is crazy of course, is
(37:40):
I want to drive from Eastern Asia all the way
to the coast of Spain or France. That's that's quite
a trip. Yeah, have you ever calculated how how many
miles and all that that is? I mean, if you ever, like,
I don't want to hold you to these numbers right now,
but have you ever done the calculation, if you're how
far it would be and how long would take you?
(38:02):
And I mean if you investigated or just really kind
of dreamed it. At this point, I haven't yet, and
I probably I probably should if I want to make
this happen. At some point, I need to start calculating
the distances, cost gas, which countries will and will not
let me in because I have a bit of a past.
You know, a lot of people dream of, you know,
(38:23):
the old root sixty six thing here in the United States.
I'm sure that they're you know, European versions of this.
You know that they have like an old route that
is no longer you know that the primary rout anymore.
That it's more picturesque than it is, you know, quick,
I guess it's not. That's not the fastest way to
get somewhere, but it's the best way. I mean, yeah,
I think road trips in in some ways are like
(38:45):
modern day pilgrimages, you know, And people might go out
so and I don't mean the religious connotation. I just
mean this, this traveling for a purpose that makes the
journey as important as the destination. Yeah. You know a
lot of times when I am traveling now, I find
that when I get there, I'm I'm almost kind of bored.
You know. It's like you get on the highway and
(39:07):
a lot of roads are like this. But like I
seventy five, we travel I seventy five a lot of
the South, and I mean it's it's kind of the
same thing. There's there's gas stations and you know, restaurants
and everything along the way. It's very convenient to travel,
it's very fast, but what you see along the way
is not all that spectacular. It becomes homogeneous after a
certain amount of times. Yeah, you get no idea of
(39:29):
the little towns that you're going past. Now. You know,
it used to be that you would go either through
them or right next to them, but you were on
smaller roads like state roads. Sure, yeah, it was a
lot smaller, you know, even if it was two lanes
one way, but or you know, even one lane each way. Um,
you've got to see a lot more of of Um.
I guess these these American. I guess maybe it's a
(39:51):
better way to say you got to see a lot
more of these tiny towns and and um, of course
it took a lot longer to get wherever you're going.
I get that, but um, I often times will like
to you pull off the highway and take the smaller
roads to get to the final destination. You know, maybe
not the whole way because you have to get there
kind of quick time constraints with jobs or school or what. Yeah.
I do that when I'm driving as well. Yeah, it's
(40:12):
nice to you know, maybe maybe you know a planned stop,
you know, a hundred miles away, and then from that
point on to your final destination, you're going to take
the old route. Yeah, I'm a sucker for the regional
I guess the regional icons or things of note, you know,
Like I will stop if if I'm driving by myself,
(40:34):
I will stop any time I see a sign from
museum I've never heard of, or you know, historic mounds
are this way. Uh you know, I've I've stopped. System
things were obviously tourist traps, but that's part of it,
and that's part of what makes these so great, you know,
for those of you who are out there who are
as interesting road trips as Scott and I are. Why
(40:57):
not check out some of our earlier podcast We have
one on the very first road trip, which is a
great story. Uh, and we have we have several yeah
I think we did. You even did one on roadside attractions,
didn't we did? How summer scams and some right those
are funny, some of them are really right. Oh yeah,
world's uh fourth largest frying pad. Things like that, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(41:20):
you see the giant squirrel or something, you know, crazy
things like that that you end up you you pay
five bucks and then you go through a a maze
made out of hay that you can't see where you're
headed to. And then they show you some paper mache
squirrel or something and it's stilly, but you know it's fun.
It's also a lot of fun. Or the mystery spots,
you know, you've got a whole episode on just those,
and it's way way back in our history. So you know,
(41:43):
go to go to car Stuff Show, Yes, car stuff
show dot com, and that way you can find it,
because you're not gonna find that one on iTunes. It's
way too far in the past. That's a deep cut
my friends. But you can find those episodes along with
every episode we've ever done on the website Scott just
mentioned you may have heard us mentioned some social media.
(42:04):
That's right. Even though even though we're we can be
a bit curmudgeon ly on our show, we were with
the times we're hit. We know about the internet. You know,
true story, We're on Facebook and Twitter where we're car
Stuff HSW. You can find some additional stories that may
not have made it into an audio podcast, as well
(42:26):
as some stuff that will give a give a little
more depth to uh the understanding of the topics that
we're exploring, such as today's episode. And in the meantime,
if you've got like the perfect road trip idea, or
if you have an idea for a topic that we
should cover in an upcoming episode of car Stuff, we'd
love to hear from you. You can write to us
(42:47):
directly at car Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
We more on this and thousands of other topics. This
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think. Send an email to podcast headhouse stuff works
dot com.
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to the show. I'm Scott and I'm Ben. As always,
we are joined by our super producer Noldie Explorer Brown.
And Uh, today we're going. Uh, we're going a little
(00:24):
bit further from the US, not too far, eventually crossing through.
Eventually we're making our way. We're mosing on down. What
are we talking about today, Scott, Today is the I'll
give you the Spanish name, Ben, It's the Expedition on
Danas Americas. And for those of us who do not
have Scott's polyglot skills, that is the Expedition of the America's. Yes,
(00:49):
I'm sure everybody kind of picked up on that, but
this is something happened back in ninety nine. And this
was a suggestion from a listener named Ben h Out
of North care Lina and Ben wrote in a long
time ago, So I hope Ben still listening. This is
one of those ones that we picked up in our
um Nuts and Bolts, or maybe it was a listener
mail episode. I think we did where we caught up
(01:11):
from a long time ago, months and months ago. And
Uh and this is one of those topics, and I
thought this was an amazing story. This really, this is
this could be like an epic tale. Really. However, we're gonna,
you know, keep it brief and we'll we'll let you
investigated a little bit on your own as well, because
there is a there's a twenty seven minute I think
that documentary on this whole thing, this whole trip, from
(01:33):
beginning to end. It's well done. It's very nineteen seventies,
the narration and the music and it almost has some
folk music along the way that was written specifically for this.
Um it's it's an interesting watch. So if you get
a chance to to watch the video that goes along
with this, please do. You can find it on YouTube
or the Mayo or a lot of those places. Um
but let's let's just let's start right from the beginning,
(01:55):
ben because um, well, you know what tome about this, Alright,
we'll just tell everybody what it's all about first, and
then we'll just start him to begin and tell him,
like come some of the hardships that they had along
the way. Um. So, so the idea is that this
group of guys, that these these off road enthusiasts Um,
none are really professional. I don't think. Um. They are
going to take on the Pan American Highway from beginning
(02:17):
to end. And not only that they're gonna go, they're
gonna extend it a little bit more. They're gonna go
a slightly different route because they want to go from
the southernmost tip of the America's which is way way
way down in um Chile. Right, Yeah, it's in Chile.
That's right. It's uh, it's Tierra del Fuego, Chile, which
is the southernmost point of the of South America. And
then they were gonna go all the way north to
Prudeho Bay and that's the north well roughly the northernmost
(02:41):
part of North America that you can get to close
enough for government work. This is a team of fourteen
intrepid off roads led by a gentleman named Mark A. Smith. Yeah,
Mark Smith. Now Mark is a well, he's a he's
an off road enthusiast. And I have to read maybe
a description of who this guy is just so you
get an idea of of what he's up to here.
(03:01):
But he's he's the founder of what we know as
the jeep Jamboree way back way back in the nineteen fifties,
and it was just kind of started because he loved jeeps.
He liked he liked driving them. So, um, let's see,
here's here's a here's maybe the best description of him.
He's the son of a miner, and he grew up
in Nevada and San Francisco, so he I think mostly
mostly in San Francisco area. Um. He served time as
(03:23):
a marine near the end of World War Two where
he drove his first Jeep. So at the end of
World War Two, that's his very first experience. And in
nineteen fifty one he settled in Georgetown, California, and he
worked as a logger and a sheriff and eventually went
into real estate. He founded the Jeepers Jamboree in nineteen
fifty three, so he's been doing a long time at
this point. We've talked about Jeep Jamboree on the show before.
(03:43):
I think we have in camp Cheep and all those
other Jeep one oh one, and there's a lot of
off road activities around or or um gatherings I guess
around the Jeep brand and other off road brands too,
but Jeep seems to have this this uh this huge,
huge following, and it goes all the way back to
the nineteen fifty when he organized the Jeepers Jamboree and
I think that eventually just became the Jeep Jamboree. Yeah,
(04:06):
and then it really took off in a fifty four
when Willie's Motors got involved. Yeah, that's right, and so
you know, it's like a worldwide thing now. I mean
people come from all over the world. And he continued
to sponsor and drive jeep events all across the country
for another six decades after after you know, he initially
did this in the nineteen fifties. So, uh, it's been along.
You know, he's been around doing this a long time.
(04:27):
He's he's not around anymore, but I believe he passed away,
and I think it wasteen when when Mark passed away.
But we're talking about something that happened about forty years
ago now, so he was not a young guy even
then when he did this. He was even an older guy,
not one of the oldest on the trip, because the
trip had a wide range of of ages went from
(04:47):
I think one guy was nineteen who took this truck
with him, and another guy was in his mid sixties
and then everything in between and from all different walks
of life. But like I said, none of these guys
were really considered, like I guess professional roads. Yeah, he
passed away at the age of eighties seven. It was
June ninth, two thousand fourteen. And you know what, You're
(05:11):
gonna find a lot of photos of him standing next
to uh, at least one of those jeeps from from this, uh,
this excursion we're talking about, and they're they're red c
J seven's, So I mean, even as an old timer,
he's he's still around the Jeep product. And I'm sure
that he was driving, probably right up until the day
he died. Almost you know, this is that's his kind
of thing, it's his lifestyle. But what a trip these
guys took back in nine oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So
(05:35):
this is around about twenty thousand miles of road of
travel and and you'll see why I see travel instead
of road all the way, because that's at times the
definition gets stretched and at times it doesn't apply. So
they took all Jeep c J models and left nine
(05:55):
seventy eight one of the most epic road trips in history.
And you know, we loved who explore road trips. Uh, Scott,
you mentioned some of the you alluded to some of
the trials and travails the group would encounter in their journey,
and let's get one of these out of the way.
Depend on how you want to do this, we have
(06:17):
to mention Darien's Gap. Oh sure, Darien's Gap. So the
Pan American Highway is a fascinating thing and if you
ever get the chance to travel it, first take it,
you know, even if you can't go all the way.
It's a network of roads that's about ninety thousand miles
(06:37):
in total length and it links up almost all of
the countries in North and South America. But there's one
place in that road, and it's called Darien Gap. Yeah,
the Darien Gap. Now, this is an interesting bit of
terrain here because this is uh was we set as
jungle at swamp. It's really it's almost like impenetrable jungle. Really,
(07:00):
it's it's very very dense. Even you can't really walk
across this. And here are these guys with six jeeps
and fourteen people and they're gonna try to make their
way through, right, this is some nasty territories to try
to drive through. It's it's beautiful from a naturalist perspective,
but when it comes to a road trip, it's one
(07:21):
of the one of the biggest pains in the Key
Star you could imagine. It's located. It's located in Central America,
in the northern portion of Colombia and into Panama, and
it's super expensive to try to build roads here or
even a lot of development that would not be unreasonable
(07:44):
in other places. Is is very difficult and the environmental
cost is very is very tough. Add to that the
fact that this would have to span across these two
countries in that area, and there's a political part to
it as well. So this is the infamous missing link
of the Pan American Highway. Yeah, it's a place where
(08:07):
they're not going to pay if they're not going to
put a bridge in, they're not going to not going
to cut a way through there. And the reason are
there reasons I should say that they're not going to
do that, um, And it's kind of controversial. They've actually
kind of started to do that and then and then
backed it down. That was back in the early nineteen seventies,
like nineteen seventy one, I think, or at least the
planning stages. UM. They halted it in nineteen seventy four
(08:27):
after environmentalist raised some concerns. I think it was, you know,
just about cutting down the jungle, you know, getting cutting
a way through there and allowing traffic to go through
that area. UM. Another effort to build the build a
road through there began around nineteen by UH the u
N United Nations Agency reported that the road and the
subsequent development that would go along with it would cause
(08:49):
extensive environmental damage. So again environmental damage. They tried about
twenty years apart to do it, but they got you know,
pushed back again. And then another reason this is this
is maybe one of the better reasons for them not
to not do this, I think. And of course the
environmental is important, but listen to this, Ben there's evidence
that the dairying gap has prevented the spread of disease
(09:10):
cattle into Central and Northern America because it's a complete block.
You can't get through there. So they have not seen
foot and mouth disease since nineteen fifty four, and at
least since the nineteen seventies. It's been a substantial factor
in preventing the road going through the Daring gap. So
it's not just um, you know that they don't want
to cut down the jungle. They don't want to put
pavement where there wasn't pavement before. Uh, they are they're
(09:32):
concerned about getting foot and mouth disease, you know, with
with with cattle crossing back and forth. So it's a
smart move I think on their part. Um, also there's
the potential erosion of the indigenous people's culture. You know that.
You know that, um that right now keeps them separate,
and that is in a way that's good. I mean,
of course it's always good to integrate a bit, you know,
(09:53):
but um, this is it's also going to erode that
that that culture is going to um uh what am
I looking for? It's going to it's gonna assimilate it all.
It's gonna assimilate the people in some way, it could
lead to exploitation, because unfortunately, what we've seen throughout history
is that when there are native populations, native people's living
(10:19):
in that kind of isolation, the modern world often has
um dangerous effects. You know. Dilute that was the word
I was looking, Yeah, dilute the culture, I guess in
a in a way, well, yeah, that's part of it,
but it can also lead to uh dying out of
a language. It can also lead to uh exploitation of
(10:40):
individuals for various purposes. So there could be like a
disease factor exactly just not the immunity to the same
things exactly right. And so there's a lot of issues
with that. And again, this this Darian gap bit here,
we're focusing on that right now. But prior to this
there's ten thousand miles of travel, and then after this
(11:02):
there's another ten thousands. So this is an important thing here.
This this this daring gap, they said, is kind of
like the crux of the whole expedition. And like to
just look at this, I mean to look at the
wall of jungle that they had to drive into. It
is incredible. So how did they do it? How do
they get jeep vehicles through this jungle that, oh, by
the way, it had been crossed only once before prior
(11:24):
to this, and there was a British army I believe
that did it on foot. It took the months of
time to get this army through there, and they lost
a lot of men. They uh, they had a significant
death toll uh as they tried to get through and
also they had a lot of um well, I guess
um illnesses from mosquito bites and you know, things like
that along the way. So it was very almost like
a crippling journey for them to get through. And these
(11:45):
guys are gonna try to do it in a in
a short short amount of time with jeeps, and they
did it in just thirty days. They crossed it in
thirty days with the help of indigenous tribes and the
Colombian army. Now that's important because these guys were the
ones that walked out front with machetes and hand cut
the old you know, undergrowth away and the vines and
all that, you know, left behind some of the bigger
trees and things for you know, those guys to cut down.
(12:08):
But they were chopping this, you know, this trail. They
knew exactly how wide they had to cut it, now
high they had to cut it. They made a tunnel
pretty much through the jungle and allowed them to drive through.
And we're talking like sometimes just yards at a time,
I mean, I mean during the day. Right, this is
a very dense area. And these were stock jeeps. These
were just regular c J sevans, they weren't they didn't
(12:29):
have a whole saying is they didn't have a whole
bunch of I don't know what you would imagine when
you think of jungle modifications. You know, A good point, man,
because they like they didn't have the factory, um, you know,
build them special equipment. That's maybe the best way. They
like stock. Yeah they were stock, I agree, but they
had thirty one in tires. They also had I'm sure
they had some reinforcements in area that they themselves put on,
(12:51):
but it was pretty much stock jeeps. So they head
out and they've got this an incredible sense of adventure
and that they're just just like the the epitome of
boy scout mentality on the prepared thing right, Like they're
they're prepared for everything. They've got these special built ladders
that are on top of the vehicles. They've got um um.
Of course welding equipment is on board because I think
they didn't end up breaking an axle while they were
in the in the jungle. Uh, they use winches to
(13:14):
pull themselves up bridges when they can't drive up because
these are steep. They're they're going over washes and things,
you know, they can't get over and so what they
do is they would cut away the undergrowth, lay down
these these metal looks like they look like ladders almost.
I think they were aluminium, I think, or maybe not
they were. They were lightweight. They would lay down these
aluminum ladders and they would drive over them their special
belt of course, you know, to with still and with
(13:34):
stand the weight. But they would almost become engineers in
a way. And the way that they figured out how
to how to make these ladders work to get over
these sometimes thirty foot deep washes, sometimes there were five feet,
you know they were. They were varying in size that
they across this jungle area. But what a trek, I mean.
And to watch them do that, it's really pretty clever
how they did. It's almost like those trucks that would
lay out the road in front of them. You have
(13:55):
to move slowly. And surely also they didn't cross They
make the entirety of the gap by traveling on land.
They spent a lot of time traveling by barge across
what's known as the Atrato Atrato River in Columbia. Yeah,
so they went on barge. And I also saw if
you if you watch this this film and I encourage
(14:15):
you to watch it. It's again twenty seven minutes, but
it's it's really interesting. Part of this the way across
one of the rivers, and I don't think it was
in the gap. I think it was maybe somewhere else
out you know, maybe in Mexico somewhere or something. But um,
this is so interesting. They would drive they had to
course hack a trail down to the river bank and
drive down, and then they laid those uh, those those
ladders that I was telling you about, you know, the
(14:37):
ones that they drive over. They laid them across canoes.
You have to picture like maybe three canoes, really long,
dugout type canoes, you know, like almost like um, like
tree trunks, you know, but really long, three of them
in a row, and you would drive across them. It's
not not you know, with them, but across them on
those ladders, and then people would get in the water
and then push the canoes sideways across the river to
(14:59):
get them a cross and then they would drive off
the ladders and on the other side. Is brilliant. And
I don't know if I would trust I mean, looking
at what they were floating on, I don't know if
I trust the weight of a full jeep on there
because it's loaded down with all of their expedition equipment
to all the food, all the water filtration stuff. You know. Um,
they're they're heavy. They're not really lightweight vehicles. Um, I
(15:20):
don't know. To me. That was one of those things
that just really stood out in this in this film
is like, man, these guys are just so clever about
how they're getting across. They had to have had that
planned out well ahead of time, right. This is a
slowly but surely wins the race kind of strategy, which is,
as we can see, the only one that will work there.
Before we talk more about the different things they faced,
(15:41):
I gotta tell you, I know I jumped straight to
Darien's Gap, but it's because it's a fascinating patch of land.
I mean, it's big to call the patch. But Scott,
there's another thing we didn't talk about, which is that
on a personal, like a social level, Darien's Gap is dangerous.
It is it is Uh. It's been described as a
(16:03):
refuge for the lawless because it's impenetrable. Yeah, well, because
it's you know, not impenetrable. But it's great. It's a
great hideout. Yeah, it's a great hideout actually, yeah. And
you can you can read different depictions of some of
the settlements or areas and there. One in particular is
(16:24):
a place called ya Visa, which is famous for being lawless.
It's it's described as get this man, a magnet for fugitives, poachers,
and bootleggers. Now you Visa is on the north end.
That's exactly, that's the last I guess. That's the town
where the road ends in the gap begins and the
other side. You know what the name of the one
is on the south side. What's one of the south
(16:45):
side of Turbo, Turbo. It's named Turbo. Yeah, you u
r b O Turbo. Yeah, it's an interesting name. But
so they traveled between Turbo and Visa through this jungle
and as we said, they were hacking away all this
stuff in along the way. And you said, it's day
interesting through there as well. Totally get that. They said
mosquitoes were a constant issue for them. Uh, you know,
(17:06):
the temperatures, Oh my gosh, we don't even talk about
temperatures up to like a hundred and five degrees during
the day. And then uh, you know, of course humidity
is for our international friends. And that's a hundred and
five degrees fahrenheit and humidity was nearly one the entire time.
So this trip had to be pretty miserable on these
guys along the way. And oh we didn't also say this.
(17:28):
As they were chopping, you know, they would chop a
few yards at a time and just some some days
they would only go maybe five feet at the most,
and other days as they got this rhythm going, as
they figured out, you know, the choppers knew just how
much to cut down and what they needed. They got
a better rhythm going and they could go then go
you know, three, four or even five miles a day,
which was a huge jump because we're talking about, you know,
(17:49):
covering a pretty good distance here. So um and by
the time they got to the end of it, you know,
when they're when they're exiting, the trail on the south
side was already overgrown again. It was gone. There's no
more trade else. It's not like, you know, this trail
was going to remain for a long time or I
did any permanent damage. Uh, the jungle healed itself so
quickly that there was no trace of them anymore. On
(18:09):
the south side that's incredible to me. It took what
thirty one days? I said that voracious, Yeah, thirty one
days to get through there. So it gives an idea
of just how quickly this, uh, this thing can heal itself.
It's it's really remarkable. I bet, I bet if you
did build a highway through their maintenance, like just daily
maintenance would be unbelievable. It's almost like when they build
a um a highway through desert or something and you
(18:32):
have to watch the sand blowing over, like almost like
snow would drift over a road. And there's another consideration
to with the road construction there, which is that, well,
here's the best way you put the dilemma is this.
It is possible, at great expense to build a road
through that area. However, to build a road through that
(18:56):
area that would last and be drivable, you would have
to you would have to raise parts of it, you
know what I mean, like so the earth with salt
kind of stuff, and you would have to destroy a
vast amount of it to make it happen, because you
essentially one way or the other, you'd be cutting it
in a half. I just love about all this. I mean,
(19:17):
along the way they really, I mean they knew sort
of what to expect, but they didn't know everything, you know.
So they set out, these these these fifteen guys, they
set out and they all have to be just excellent
problem solvers, and they all have to count on each other.
They all have to to know that the other ones
got their back. They all have to really like trust
one another in order to make this work. Because if
if one person isn't pulling their weight, or if they're
(19:40):
not doing what they're supposed to do, or they give
up or they're you know, they get homesick and they
want to stop the thing or whatever, game over. It
is because all these guys they're just like I mean
just in general, they're just people from ordinary walks of life.
I mean, they have jobs, they have families. The families,
you know, in a lot of cases just said just
go do it. When are you ever going to have,
you know, four months opportunity to to do something like
(20:02):
this ever again in your life, and you're gonna get
to see all of all of the America's do it,
you know, just go. So they had a lot of
support in their families, um, you know, and and the
camaraderie between the guys on this trip. You're gonna see
that in that film too, just how well they get
along at the end of the trip. You would think
that maybe there's a little, you know, a little friction
between them, but if they were happy, they were happier
(20:22):
than ever. At the end. They were. They were just
they were almost sad to have to, you know, go
back to their normal lives, as I can imagine, you know,
going back to work would be a little difficult after
something like this, But at the end, they were just
super happy that they had done it. They were they
were excited about, you know, these lifelong friends now that
they had made um and again it all worked out
perfectly in the end. They would they worked together well,
(20:45):
they all were excellent problem solvers. It was it's just
an interesting time for all of them, I'm sure, and
it's and it's fun for us to look at and
read about. While they were in the gap, they had
to use a filtration system to get water, and they
lived on like freeze dry fruit and stuff. Well they
have vegetables and meat, but they had to bring their
(21:06):
own rations. As the point, well for that part of it, yeah,
because the other rest of the time they're in they're
stopping in towns and things. Right, Yeah, they go through
you know, they go through Costa Rica, Panama City. You know,
they go through places that are inhabited. Um, but that
it's still there's still some things that they have to
(21:27):
deal with, right, like crushing temperatures. Well, there are many
parts of the trip. Yeah, well, okay, the hundred and
five degrees in the in the gap, but then when
you get up to Prude Obey, it's it's fifty below zero.
So they've got to be prepared for all that too.
Like the difference in temperatures. They said, you know, just
that example right there, one hundred and five to fifty
below with a wind chill. They said, that's like a
(21:48):
hundred and fifty five degrees in variants. You know that
they have to deal with on this one trip. And
I know it's you know, some time on park because
this whole thing took one hundred and twenty two days.
And think about the effects on the engines too. Oh yeah,
the equipment. That's gonna be extremely difficult on them. And
but but as I said, you know, they ended up
this whole thing with with one broken axle, and I
think that happened in the gap because I saw them
(22:09):
welding on that on that film and five flat tires
that's it between all six jeeps, all fifteen guys. They
kept the equipment in such good shape that that that
it worked out really well, which is a bargain when
you think about it, it really is. I mean you
almost expect that in your your family sedan if you're
gonnaously injured, that's right. Oh yeah, that this thing is
like no one really like they're there are no fatalities.
(22:30):
There were no you know, nobody had to be hauled
off the hospital or anything like that. It was that's true. No,
I mean, it all seemed to go really well. I
mean they had they had they had planned for everything,
and I'm sure there was some you know, cuts and
bruises and scrapes along the way, but that's just the
way it worked because there again in the gap. But
keep going back to the gap stuff, because that's the
most interesting part of this whole thing really took to me. Anyways,
(22:52):
we'll talk about some other regions in a moment that
maybe interest other people, but um, they were using their
own bodies as you know, ballast to wait in the jungle,
you know, to get over some of these uh these
ridges and you know, through the washes and things. So
you'll see footage of you know, guys hanging on and
suddenly the you know, the jeep will jerk violently to
the right and everybody falls off to the left, you know,
into the onto the jungle floor, but no one gets like,
(23:14):
you know, broken bones or anything like that along the way.
Would you do this? Would I do this? Right now?
I probably wouldn't with you know, the family situation, But
if I if younger, if I was a younger Scott Benjamin, Yes,
I would, Yeah, I would, I would do it. I
have to refer to yourself in third person. Oh okay, okay,
so you would say, right now, that's not Scott. I
(23:36):
would absolutely. I would absolutely sign onto something like this,
especially if I could get the time off work, or
maybe I could just record remotely. What do you think, Scott?
Can I I'll do my side of it from a
from a jeep like the jungle satellite phone. Why why not?
If they can do it from Everest, you might as
well do it from there, right? Why not? Why not? Alright?
(23:59):
So how about let's let's back it up just a
little bit because we said, you know, the gap is
really fascinating. It's it's interesting stuff, and that's probably the
most to talk about there really. But when they left
the southernmost tip, you know, down in Chile, they had
some serious territory across there as well. I mean, they
were again ten thousand miles to get to the Gaps.
So when they left, you know, the first few days
(24:21):
were somewhat easy compared to the rest of the trip,
and it was you know, cruising right along. But let's
get this out of the way too. They had to
cross the Andies Mountains three times before they got to
the gap, so you know, one of the one of
the crossings is almost right away, and uh, you know,
it's still again relatively easy. It's beautiful scenery along the way.
But they're traveling something like four hundred, five hundred, even
(24:41):
six hundred miles each day at first. So you know,
by the time they get to day six, I think, um,
you know, they're they're still in They're still in Chile,
I believe at that point. Um, But they meet up
with like, you know, Chilean cowboys and they're you know,
having barbecues with them, and you know, trying to really
soak in the culture along the way. They're not just
driving through and you know, not really paying attention to
what's happening around. And they they're getting the culture, they're
(25:02):
they're getting the scenery. By day thirteen, they're back in
the Andes Mountains again, these again huge mountains. This is
the second time. UM, really challenging at this point though
in that second the second crossing to stay on schedule,
because UM, at this point, you gotta imagine what it's
like to trail six miles every day in a ged
vehicle with you know, two or three other guys. It's
(25:23):
gotta be it's gotta be tough. I mean, it's it's
a real test of endurance. UM. Maybe not quite as
tough as like, you know, the guys that ride the
thousand mile thousand miles a day for two weeks or whatever.
Remember the Iron Butt Rally. Remember that, maybe it's not
that difficult, but it's it's got to be pretty tough
on them. And knowing that they've got another on a
hundred and ten days ahead of them, that's tough. That's
(25:44):
tough to stomach something like that. But uh, they did it.
They stuck with it, and by day twenty one they
had left the mountains behind and they were in the
Ottacama Desert. And this is described as the land that
God forgot And the reason you know this, so it
took them two days. But the reason they say that
is because there's zero life in the Atacama Desert, this
(26:06):
plateau in South America, it's it's a strip of land.
It's the driest let me see if I can qualify
this correctly, the driest non polar desert in the world.
It's just absolutely barren. There's just nothing there. And when
I said lifeless, I mean that, I mean they search
for life on this all the time. They were not
all the time, but they did, and there's nothing, no
(26:29):
plant life, no animal life, nothing. It's just this barren
waste land. And they crossed that for it takes them
two days to get across that. So no oasis in sight,
you know, midway or anything like that. But driving you know,
long long distances. I don't know. If they're covering four
or five or six hundred miles a day and they're
driving two days across this thing, that's gonna be a
huge desert area. I don't know that the distance that
(26:49):
that that was or not. But after they after they
left that, uh, they were onto Peru, and of course
that meant crossing the Andes for the third time, which
again interesting here, this is something interesting here. I thought
they had stayed together through the whole thing, but I
found out watching that film that they actually broke up
into smaller groups. They decided that they were going to
choose an adventure when they got into the Peru area.
(27:12):
So so they had three groups and one went to
One group went to Lake Titicaca, which is a a
what's it's a lake that's twelve thousand feet in the
air in the Andes mountains. I didn't know it was
that high. Another group went to Machu Picchu, which is
a what's like a deserted city right from the fifteenth century,
the Lost City of the Inca. I mean, I think
everybody knows what is. Yeah, they rediscovered it again in
(27:35):
nineteen eleven. I think it was um And then another
group went to um Iguassu Falls, which is just an
enormous waterfall right there in the Andes regions. So I
thought that was interesting. They joined back up again when
they got to Bogata, Bogota, Columbia, and they were still
or I guess you should say this, they were at
(27:56):
that point, they were ten thousand miles away from the
starting point. So it's been a long journey. I but
they joined back up again in the city, and I
would guess they kind of got themselves together because the
next step here would be carrying gap. This is really
the crucible in which the group proves its metal and
under undergoes the test. As we said in the beginning,
(28:16):
they do make it through without any grievous injury, and
the forests swallows their path behind them, what thirty one days?
Thirty one days, and they still have another ten thousand
miles to go, Yeah, ten ten thousand miles north. But
see now at this point they're they're in Central America,
(28:38):
and they're traveling through a region where you used to
live for a while. They're gonna go through Guatemala is
one of the one of the places right they go through.
I should just say they go through Panama City, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala,
and then through Mexico. So have you ever been on
the Pan American Highway? How be you have? I don't
believe I have Scott. Unfortunately you were in so you're
(28:58):
in Guatemala, but you're in a different part of guatem
all as it ran through there. I've I've had the
good fortune to be on just a little bit of this.
I happened to notice it while I was on a
bus or something, you know, going somewhere. I don't remember
where I was in um, I was in Coaster. I've
been in Costa Rica, so I think I might have
been on it twice, but just again, very brief bits
of time, you know, like near the airport or something.
(29:20):
So nothing, you know, no adventure or anything like that.
Nothing like what these guys are up to. And then
after they get out of Mexico, Ben and there's got
there's gotta be kind of a sense of relief once
they crossed over into the United States. And that's because
these were all Americans. I don't know if we mentioned
that before, but it's kind of like a homecoming, you know,
It's like you get a little bit homesick for the
way of life that you're accustomed to, really, and and
that's that's what they experienced just as they crossed and
(29:42):
over because they had a big cook out they had,
you know, hamburgers and baked beans and stuff like that.
You know, they had a big campfire looking uh um,
almost looked like a chuck wagon and pulled up or
something to feed them. It was. It was not exactly that,
but it was like an American style homecoming, right, Okay,
So they were all happy and and they still got
a long way to go because they're headed up towards
(30:02):
um head it up towards Alaska. Yeah, through British Columbia.
You're gonna go all the way up. You and know
that I'm thinking about it, just to go back to it.
I'm kind of bummed Scott that I lived in guatemal
and didn't go, And you know what, I didn't mean
to bring up a store issue, so I apologize. But
is it possible that I may have and not recognized.
(30:23):
That's That's what I'm thinking, I think because it cuts
right through there, and you did a lot of bus
travel and stuff while you were there, right, I mean
you did some some you got a round a bit
later there. It wasn't like you were in one village
or something, right, No, No, I did. I did a
little bit of traveling. You know what. I'm just gonna
tell myself that I was on it and I didn't
recognize it, and then I'll go back. I'm willing to
bet that you at some point we're on it and
(30:45):
didn't realize it, because that's what happened to me. And
the only reason I saw it was because I could
see out the front window and read a road sign. Well,
I was young, but I still feel like I would
have known. Yeah, well maybe okay, hopefully hopefully you were
hopefully yes, hopefully, Like you said us, just tell ourselves.
You can tell yourself maybe that you're all right, fair enough. So,
(31:05):
so they're headed up through um like the up to
the northern border, I guess, with Canada, through British Columbia,
and then into Yukon territory, uh, you know on you know,
I guess we could even describe that whole road along
the way. Well that's another podcast there. But once they
get up into Alaska, they go have to go through
another mountain range at the northern end of Alaska called
(31:26):
the Brooks Range, and then from you know, from there,
of course you know, onto Bruto Obey. But when they
were in the Brooks Range, I guess they had extremely
heavy snow that they didn't expect that. They knew it
was gonna be snowy, but they didn't expect it to
be quite as snowy as it was. Um. They said,
the visibility is cut down to something like twenty five
ft at one point, and again the temperature is fifty
below zero with a wind chills, so it's an extreme situation.
(31:49):
But the the equipment held up, the jeeps were fine. Um,
and then they made it. I mean, there was no
real drama you know, from that snowstorm or anything other
than just trying to get through it with every together
all in one time. But when they got to Bruto Obey,
it looked like it was extremely bitter cold, and they
were all celebrating, of course, you know, because they had
made their finish their journey. Um. Then there's like kind
(32:11):
of the sort of a sad part and the whole
the whole film where all the guys are, you know,
congratulating each other. But then they later you know, you
can tell this is it's not in Alaska, of course,
you know, they're they're back wherever they are and uh
doing interviews standing next to the jeeps and they're they're
talking about the trip and they're all a bit sad
to return to daily life and have to go back
to work again after nearly five months off, or it
(32:33):
wasn't nearly four months. I think it's nearly four more months.
Hund twenty two days. They've traveled twenty one thousand miles together,
solved all these issues together, they've become lifelong friends. They're
they're they have a good relationship with each other. So, um,
now I can see where this would be a huge
letdown to have to just kind of scatter and go
your own way. At that point, you'd want to kind
(32:54):
of you'd want to continue the adventure, like, Hey, everybody,
let's let's go uh, let's go to the East side
of Canada. And we've all felt this, uh in some
form or another when you're done with let's say, listeners
out there who are still school age when you have
to go back to school at the end of summer,
(33:15):
or you know, camp is over, something like that. And
to make the comparison with like a class trip, Yeah,
a class trip, that's a great that's a great comparison
to because you get the camaraderie in their bond their
form that you know you're having a great time and
you don't want it to end. And it's only a
weekend or maybe it's a week or whatever, but you
just don't want to end. You'd like it to continue on.
But if it did, you know it might not turn
(33:37):
and right, And I guess family vacations could be another comparison,
but that really depends on how you feel about your family,
which is none of our business. Good point, that can
go either way, right, Yeah, so, uh, what's so fascinating
I think about Mark Smith is both his enterprising and
trepid nature, but also his devotion to jeeps. Man. Oh yeah,
(33:58):
lifelong devotion. I mean from the moment he drove one
winning in nineteen well the end of World War two,
so in the forties, um, and and then he did
it for decades after that, and he's always pictured next
to jeeps, so we know that for you know, six
decades after that he maintained that love of the jeep
product and his his role as a leader like in
Crossing Rubicon Trail and Jeep Jamborees and all that he was.
(34:20):
He was a part of that whole thing right up
until probably right when he died. And as the Templar
said to Indiana Jones, he's well, to paraphrase the templar, uh,
Mark chose wisely because look, guys, I love minding Carlos,
but there's not a way I'm getting that thing through
the dairy and gap, you know. Uh yeah, so money
(34:43):
Carlo couldn't go there, A lot of cars couldn't. And
that includes there's a bit of silver lining. Honda Odysse's
oh that's true. He will not encounter on to Odyssey
if you were somewhere in the dairy and game one
of its main selling points, Well, maybe you should. It's
maybe where she camp out. Of course, it's it's full
of the and robberts, right, I guess maybe on the edges,
but you know, it's it's pretty sparsely populated in the interior.
(35:06):
So yeah, it's one of those places where go a
long time without seeing a person. But also, you know, uh,
also when we when we think about it's amazing sense
of adventure and again the fact that these were not specialized,
one off built vehicles. It's it's pretty inspiring to realize
(35:29):
just what people are capable of when they when they
set their minds to a goal. And I love that
you mentioned you know, there had to be a bit
of sadness, and you know, they're probably proposals to like, hey,
let's let's go start at the tip of Russia of
Siberian Russia, do it again and drive across, which would
(35:50):
be a very different trip. Yeah, at sure would. Yeah,
there's that. It's a thing like this is a this
is its own unique thing. And honestly, if you want
to get the best feel for the story, and I
hope that most of our podcasts are like this for
you that and when we describe something or try to
describe something, we're doing our best, you know, the best
we can with the medium that we have. But um,
(36:10):
if we had video to go along with us, I'd
be able to show you some incredible footage from this
this trip, and you should search it out and look
for it. I mean if even if you just you know,
skim through real quick and look at a little bit
of it here and there. But I do I do
recommend watching the whole thing. It's twenty seven minutes long,
and it really gives you the beginning to end of
this whole journey and what they had to go through,
(36:30):
and and it's in their own words, a lot of them,
you know, there's there's footage taking along away, some really
great footage, some spectacular footage of you know, the scenery
and the trials and tribulations they had to go through
in the gap. It's just it's it's amazing. It's really
it's really well done. And again nineteen seventies, late nineteen seventies,
early nineteen eighties, So be kind to it in the
comments with that, but it looks very seventies. We can
(36:52):
probably post that up on social media as well. If
I don't check it out, there's a YouTube link. I
don't see why not I can do that. And then
this also makes me think of a question for you
ladies and gentlemen. Do you have a dream road trip?
And if so, what what is it? It doesn't have
to be you know, spanning two continents in what seventeen countries.
(37:16):
It can be, Uh. It can be as as simple
as you know, like my dream road trip is to
go to my grandfather's house, or to drive to the
Grand Canyon or something. Uh. In in my case from
my dream road trips, which is crazy of course, is
(37:40):
I want to drive from Eastern Asia all the way
to the coast of Spain or France. That's that's quite
a trip. Yeah, have you ever calculated how how many
miles and all that that is? I mean, if you ever, like,
I don't want to hold you to these numbers right now,
but have you ever done the calculation, if you're how
far it would be and how long would take you?
(38:02):
And I mean if you investigated or just really kind
of dreamed it. At this point, I haven't yet, and
I probably I probably should if I want to make
this happen. At some point, I need to start calculating
the distances, cost gas, which countries will and will not
let me in because I have a bit of a past.
You know, a lot of people dream of, you know,
(38:23):
the old root sixty six thing here in the United States.
I'm sure that they're you know, European versions of this.
You know that they have like an old route that
is no longer you know that the primary rout anymore.
That it's more picturesque than it is, you know, quick,
I guess it's not. That's not the fastest way to
get somewhere, but it's the best way. I mean, yeah,
I think road trips in in some ways are like
(38:45):
modern day pilgrimages, you know, And people might go out
so and I don't mean the religious connotation. I just
mean this, this traveling for a purpose that makes the
journey as important as the destination. Yeah. You know a
lot of times when I am traveling now, I find
that when I get there, I'm I'm almost kind of bored.
You know. It's like you get on the highway and
(39:07):
a lot of roads are like this. But like I
seventy five, we travel I seventy five a lot of
the South, and I mean it's it's kind of the
same thing. There's there's gas stations and you know, restaurants
and everything along the way. It's very convenient to travel,
it's very fast, but what you see along the way
is not all that spectacular. It becomes homogeneous after a
certain amount of times. Yeah, you get no idea of
(39:29):
the little towns that you're going past. Now. You know,
it used to be that you would go either through
them or right next to them, but you were on
smaller roads like state roads. Sure, yeah, it was a
lot smaller, you know, even if it was two lanes
one way, but or you know, even one lane each way. Um,
you've got to see a lot more of of Um.
I guess these these American. I guess maybe it's a
(39:51):
better way to say you got to see a lot
more of these tiny towns and and um, of course
it took a lot longer to get wherever you're going.
I get that, but um, I often times will like
to you pull off the highway and take the smaller
roads to get to the final destination. You know, maybe
not the whole way because you have to get there
kind of quick time constraints with jobs or school or what. Yeah.
I do that when I'm driving as well. Yeah, it's
(40:12):
nice to you know, maybe maybe you know a planned stop,
you know, a hundred miles away, and then from that
point on to your final destination, you're going to take
the old route. Yeah, I'm a sucker for the regional
I guess the regional icons or things of note, you know,
Like I will stop if if I'm driving by myself,
(40:34):
I will stop any time I see a sign from
museum I've never heard of, or you know, historic mounds
are this way. Uh you know, I've I've stopped. System
things were obviously tourist traps, but that's part of it,
and that's part of what makes these so great, you know,
for those of you who are out there who are
as interesting road trips as Scott and I are. Why
(40:57):
not check out some of our earlier podcast We have
one on the very first road trip, which is a
great story. Uh, and we have we have several yeah
I think we did. You even did one on roadside attractions,
didn't we did? How summer scams and some right those
are funny, some of them are really right. Oh yeah,
world's uh fourth largest frying pad. Things like that, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(41:20):
you see the giant squirrel or something, you know, crazy
things like that that you end up you you pay
five bucks and then you go through a a maze
made out of hay that you can't see where you're
headed to. And then they show you some paper mache
squirrel or something and it's stilly, but you know it's fun.
It's also a lot of fun. Or the mystery spots,
you know, you've got a whole episode on just those,
and it's way way back in our history. So you know,
(41:43):
go to go to car Stuff Show, Yes, car stuff
show dot com, and that way you can find it,
because you're not gonna find that one on iTunes. It's
way too far in the past. That's a deep cut
my friends. But you can find those episodes along with
every episode we've ever done on the website Scott just
mentioned you may have heard us mentioned some social media.
(42:04):
That's right. Even though even though we're we can be
a bit curmudgeon ly on our show, we were with
the times we're hit. We know about the internet. You know,
true story, We're on Facebook and Twitter where we're car
Stuff HSW. You can find some additional stories that may
not have made it into an audio podcast, as well
(42:26):
as some stuff that will give a give a little
more depth to uh the understanding of the topics that
we're exploring, such as today's episode. And in the meantime,
if you've got like the perfect road trip idea, or
if you have an idea for a topic that we
should cover in an upcoming episode of car Stuff, we'd
love to hear from you. You can write to us
(42:47):
directly at car Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
We more on this and thousands of other topics. This
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think. Send an email to podcast headhouse stuff works
dot com.
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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