July 8, 2024 • 60 mins
What drives someone to explore every single county in the United States? For Nick, an extreme geocacher and former Marine, it was a mix of adventure, a love for hidden treasures, and a desire to spend quality time with his aging dog, Aichan. Join us as we sit down with Nick, who shares his incredible experiences of finding over 10,000 geocaches across 34 states and 1,522 counties. Alongside Nick's captivating tales, we also share personal updates including Craig's car troubles and Joshua's unique way of spending Juneteenth.
Nick's journey began in 2010, transitioning from active duty in the Marine Corps to a private contractor with a newfound passion for geocaching. Listen to his heartfelt recounting of how geocaching became a way to bond with Aichan, rejuvenate her health, and meet a supportive community of geocachers, including a memorable encounter with a 90-year-old couple in Arizona. Discover the beauty of rural America as Nick encourages travelers to venture beyond city limits and embrace flexibility in their travel planning, sharing his own strategies for tackling long-term travel without burning out.
Finally, Nick gives us a peek into his future plans of documenting his adventures globally on his YouTube channel, Mag Planner, and his website. He talks about the evolution of his video creation skills and his joy in showcasing unique roadside attractions, like those in Taylor, Nebraska, and Iowa's Freedom Rocks project. This episode is a testament to the spirit of exploration, the bonds we form with our pets, and the extraordinary feats one can achieve with passion and determination.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
He did 300, josh 337 consecutive days, found just
over 10,000 geocaches themselves.
Wow, 34 states he completed anddid 1,522 new counties.
So this averaged four and ahalf counties each day.
Wow, wow, wow, wow.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Do you love to travel ?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Do you love road trips?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all
over the USA?
Hi, I'm Joshua.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
And I'm Craig.
Welcome to Treasures of OurTown.
It's the podcast that exploresthe unique and charming towns
scattered throughout the UnitedStates.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Join us as we venture to some of the country's most
intriguing destinations,uncovering hidden gems and local
secrets along the way.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
On today's episode.
Josh, we're going to talk tosomeone that has visited every
county in the USA what, Notstate, what County as well.
So, yeah, we're going to chatwith that mag planner.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
uh, throughout the throughout today's episode, mate
, he has found every hiddentreasure there is to find in our
united states of america.
Um, how appropriate of a guestfor this show is this guy, nick.
I'm so excited to talk to him.
I've seen him and heard him onseveral other podcasts and I'm
(01:27):
excited that he's on our podcastto talk about the travel aspect
of it.
Yes, because he is, dare I say,avid geocacher.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
He is extremely extreme geocacher.
However, we'll try and guidehim, josh, a little bit away
from the types of things hefound, et cetera, and go more
about the places he's been.
I love that how he's went tothese places as well, where he
stayed.
You know that he's traveleditself.
He's traveled companions Evendown Josh I put there as well in
(01:58):
one of the show notes even downto like the food he ate and how
he budgeted for the whole tripas well.
So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I wonder if he found some throne rolls on his journey
.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Oh, we haven't put that in the show notes.
But keep that in mind.
I'll give you the hot tip rightthere.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure, mate.
Let's get on to the delays andupgrades.
For you and I shall we?
Yes, what do you?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
think Well, my upgrade and my delay are
connected.
Today, the day that we wererecording this, I have a midweek
day off.
Midweek Midweek day off.
We're recording this on June19th, which is Juneteenth, which
is a national holiday, and mycompany has the whole day off.
(02:43):
So I'm home out with yourecording the podcast and it's
great, but my delay is that I'veused this day so far to clean
bathrooms.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Bathrooms.
That means you've got more thanone in your house.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, so that was kind of a delay.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Especially when you've got like they're not
teenagers anymore, they'reactually adults.
So you've got like they're notteenagers anymore, they're
actually adults.
So you've got like five adultsnow in the household.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
They should all clean their own bathrooms.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
They don't, they don't do that.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So that's my delay and my upgrade.
How about you?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Mate, I'll start with my delay first, guess what More
car trouble.
That's right, more car.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Another $1,500 worth of car trouble.
Craig, are you consideringgetting rid of this thing?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Well, I was Josh, but now I'm so invested in it now
I'm deep into it now so I'm likewell, why bother getting it all
fixed up, just to sell it for?
Less than what I've paid for itso far.
That's tough, and then I'll getthe pleasure out of the next
few years having no traumas withit.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So we'll see that makes sense.
Bummer, that's a bummerExpensive delay too.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yes, yeah, one of which as well, was the so-called
repair that I got done inArizona.
That had to be replaced againnow since I've moved back.
So, yeah, that was another bigpart of the actual payment
itself as well.
But my upgrade made up for it,josh, because last weekend I
(04:16):
traveled up to north of NewJersey area, like near New
Brunswick area on the Friday,stayed overnight there as well,
because obviously playing a lotof Munzee around that sort of
area, but there was a big NewJersey mega and it was the last
one of their 10-year mega thatthey've hosted there at New
Brunswick, um on the weekend onSaturday.
So we were up there for that,met up with a lot of friends,
josh, a lot of people that youknow.
(04:37):
I've only met um a few of them,you know, face to face, here
and there.
Social media, mind you, um.
You know you talk to people onsocial media all the time, but
actually meeting them face toface and getting that, that
physical hug and that connectionwith people, you know that's
what you really miss where whenit comes to, you know, just
connecting on social media asopposed to in real life.
So there you go.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
That's well, that's my upgrade that looked like so
much fun.
And when I say looked like somuch fun and when I say looked
like so much fun, I saw thevideo you posted last night.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Are we promoting my videos again?
This is the second episode in arow that we've got to look up
my video.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You know this is an audio only podcast, but is this
podcast a supplement to ourvideos or are the videos a
supplement to our podcast?
I don't know.
But great video, as per usual.
Thank you, mike, especiallycapturing the sights and sound
of mega events and those thatare in the creation business,
(05:34):
the geocaching creation, videocreation business.
We know how challenging it canbe to cover a mega event,
because some of them are.
There's some very similaraspects of them, but you did a
great job, as loving that 360camera looks like.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
It looks like a drone sometimes.
I love that I know well, it'sgoing to get even better, josh,
because I got myself some newgear for it too.
Um, this week I got myself a uhtrying to think how many foot
it is.
It's over three meter pole forit, so I think that's I think
three metres.
I think that's roughly aroundthe 12 foot mark, so it's a 12
foot pole for it.
(06:09):
So it's going to look even moredrone-like.
You know it's going to gethigher than what it gets at the
moment with the current sistersetup.
But I did that video, josh, justwith the 360 as well no extra
audio, no microphones on it wasall through the actual camera
itself and I think it held upreally, really well.
(06:30):
I was very happy with it andit's one of those cameras where
it's small enough so it's notintrusive, so I can be filming.
I was filming the dogs, josh.
There's lots of dogs there.
I love the GeoPups, speaking ofwhich you've got Goliath with
you today.
Yeah, I'm filming the GeoPups,speaking of which you've got
Goliath with you today.
Yeah, filming the GeoPups nearthe ground, and it looks like
I'm just walking by.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
You can't see, as opposed to the big cameras that
I'm used to with you, where youcan look and you have to frame
it as you go.
And, yeah, it's a lot easierwith this little 360 camera.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I'll give it a tip there.
Well, it's awesome.
And speaking of video creation,geo video creation and dogs,
our guest, nick MagPlanner, iswith us to talk about his
year-long journey across theUnited States, visiting every
single county An amazing,amazing feat, and I'm excited to
(07:24):
chat with him.
Let's bring him in.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Welcome to the show thank you, gentlemen for having
me today wow, josh, I feel Ifeel very privileged yeah, I
feel very privileged actuallyseeing nick, uh as well, like
he's sitting back now, he'srelaxed, he's done his whole
trip and, uh, we're gonna deep,deep, deep, deep, deep dive.
Josh, we're going to deep diveinto some statistics in regards
(07:47):
to the way you traveled, how wetraveled, et cetera as well.
So, nick, mate, firstly, youwant to introduce yourself.
You know your full name or notyour full name, but how you got
MagPlanner as your geocachingname, et cetera, et cetera, and
go from there, mate, go for it.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
All right, I All right.
I started geocaching in 2010.
I had just left active duty andgone on to the private side as
a contractor for the MarineCorps.
I linked up with a major and weat the time you know I, we had
our names to the log, and so beit.
It wasn't until I logged thatfirst geocache and I saw that
smiley face here on the map.
(08:36):
I was like you know, I reallylike the way that looks.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna see if Ican add some more smiley faces
to my map.
And here we are.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And MAG Planner mate M-A-G Planner.
What does that stand for?
How did you get MAG Planner?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So my geocaching name is MAG TAF Planner.
That's M-A-G-T-F Planner.
It stands for Marine Air GroundTask Force Planner.
When I was active duty that wasmy military occupational
specialty.
And when I was active duty thatwas my military occupational
specialty.
And when I was transitioningout of the Marine Corps it just
kind of made sense that I wouldmake that my geocaching name.
When we were out in Bahrain andI liked it and stuck with it
(09:13):
and then I've really just beenMAGTF planner until I began this
channel and I decided to takethe TF out of there.
So I lose that Marine Corpsassociation.
It becomes my own.
For me, marine air ground is onthe sea, in the air, on the
land.
I think it works very well forwhat I do, because on this trip,
what we've done all three ofthose two on day 30 I jumped out
(09:35):
of an airplane, so I definitelyput the air and mag plan of
that so, nick, high, high levelhere, because we have a lot of
details to get through aboutthis amazing journey.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
What inspired you to do this?
This is quite a feat that youhave accomplished to visit, let
alone find, a geocache in everysingle county in the United
States.
What made you want to do this?
What inspired you?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Well, you know, like anything else, there's a lot of
contributing factors that wentinto it and I could break down a
bunch of those.
But what it comes down to, themain factor, I just wanted some
time with my dog.
I wanted to be able to show heroff on camera.
I wanted to do the video seriesso I could show the rest of the
world how amazing my dog is,and I really thought she was at
(10:26):
the end of her time when westarted on the road.
She was physically, she wasn'twalking around very well anymore
.
Her mind was starting to slip,and all the dog has ever wanted,
and all the time we've beentogether, is just to be there
with me, and I've always beengone traveling around the
country overseas, whatever thecase may be a lot of that for
work, and now's the time.
(10:47):
If I don't give her that timenow, I'm not going to have it.
So I put her in the car and Istarted the series and an
amazing thing happened when wewere on the road.
She physically got better.
She shaved years off as far asher ability to move and her mind
cleared up.
Wow, and then she she didn'thave any episodes at all the
entire time we were on the roadand she has since.
We've been stopped and we'vebeen doing things.
(11:07):
She's been starting to slipagain, but the entire time we
were on the road, not a singletime did she have an episode.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So I'm grateful that I did it.
What's her name, mate, and howold is she?
What sort of dog is she?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Her name is Aichan.
She's an Australian cattleherder basenji mix.
She's 16 years old now wow.
We adopted her as a rescue.
At about a year and a half wegot her out of the shelter and
you could tell she had someabuse in her past.
She had a lot of fears, um,especially when it came to metal
objects.
She wanted nothing to do withanything that was made out of
metal, which, living on thesecond floor in an apartment
(11:41):
building with a metal staircase,made it pretty interesting
first year.
But we were able to train herthrough those the bags that she
carried and then we were able totrain her to.
I say we trained her.
Let's be honest here.
The dog trained us.
Every time I tried to teach hera command, you could tell she
was trying to figure out what Iwanted, and then she would meet
(12:02):
me halfway and it was easy ascould be to get her to do
everything.
And then she made the perfectroad buddy for the last 14 years
.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
And it's amazing, just like humans, you give a
little fresh air, daily exercise, exploring new places, new
smells especially for.
Aichen and the health justincreases, which is just another
testament to this trip.
And just travel in general tochange your environment, explore
(12:32):
new things.
It is great for mental andphysical health and this seems
like it was very true for yourdog.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I met a couple of 90-year-old geocachers in
Arizona and I asked you know whyare you out here geocaching?
And the lady goes, because itkeeps me moving love that, love
it, love it, josh.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
we just quickly do some stats before we move on as
well.
I'll say this, I'll say this so, nick, you went from the 1st of
July in 2023 and you ended the1st of June 2024, so it's pretty
much like 11 months.
He did 300, josh 337consecutive days, found just
over 10,000 geocaches themselves34 states he completed and did
(13:14):
1,522 new counties.
So this averaged four and ahalf counties each day.
Wow, wow.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Wow, just think about the 10,000.
That's amazing.
That's a lot of geocaches.
Just imagine all the geocachesthat Nick just drove by.
Oh, yeah, yeah, he just wavedto them, waved to them so many,
probably more than 10,000certainly.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And those 10,000 geocaches none of that's power
runs.
The only time I ever touchedthem is if it happened across
the county or page I needed.
I'd go get two or three out ofthe run and then I'd move on.
Yes, so those are.
Those are legitimate finds outin the terrain, moving, moving
those miles none of the ethighway, josh.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
None of that is et highway business.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Maybe he did a few, although I I did the et highway
twice, but not this.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Okay, that's a different trip, yeah, and I've
watched many of your videos andI'm just really impressed,
because this is how I geocacheis.
I really go after quality.
So it seemed to me that whenyou got into that county, you
were like I'm going for old ones, I'm going for quality finds,
I'm going for interesting places, which kudos to you for for
(14:24):
like not having to be just aboutthe geocaching but about the
places that you decided to visit.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
That's what geocaching has always been for
me.
I've considered a locals tourof an area and I see it as a
great way to get out and seesome of the places that you're
not going to find on the touristbrochure, and it has brought me
to just the most amazing spots.
And that's what I tried to dowith my geocache plan, and
admittedly there were lampskirts in there when it was just
the best option to move through, but if there was something
(14:52):
better, it was happening.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
You're forgiven, nick .
You're forgiven, absolutely,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
One more stat, josh, before we move on as well.
Miles covered was just over100,000 miles.
Wow, how is your car like what?
What sort of vehicle did youhave nick as well, because we're
talking a hundred thousandmiles on a car in one year is
just insane.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
let's move on I own a mazda cx9 and, uh, it was a big
part of my planning of havingthat car because if I was
staying in hotels every night itwould have broke the bank.
It wasn't going to happen.
So I I I worked with a friendof mine and we tore the second
and third row seatings out thereup in his attic right now, and
(15:32):
he helped me build a base frameinto the car so that I'd have a
lower storage unit and made itflat completely behind the
passenger on the driver's seatall the way through the car to
the back.
And then we were able to putbins across the back of one side
plastic tote bins, so I couldhave eight of them on one side
of the car, and the other sideof the car was kept clear so
that I'd have about six feet ofroom to lay down at night.
(15:55):
Initially I thought my dog wasgoing to sleep in the passenger
seat in her dog bed.
That lasted exactly one night.
We cuddled every night afterthat.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Very good, mate, Very good.
I know myself.
I've done a similar sort ofthing with my Ford Explorer as
well.
I've got a Ford Explorer and,yeah, I ripped out all the back
seating.
I've got a nice level out nowas well, and it's a beautiful
place to sleep.
And you nest I call it nestingwhen you go to your location
where you literally park it up,Josh as well, and you close up
(16:24):
everything and you're just inthere in the back and no one
even knows you're there.
I mean, Nick, how many nightsdid you actually sort of sleep
on the road in comparison tohotels or stays like that?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So I actually had.
I have a lot of stats I've beenworking on over the last week
so I know the exact numbers here.
He's a planner.
I stayed 93 of those nightsindoors.
Not all of those nights werewith beds.
There were a lot of times whereit was like I was given a space
to sleep in, I could roll outmy bed mat and I could sleep
there with the dog.
And I spent 244 nights in thecar, so 72% of my time was in
(17:03):
the car and the rest wassleeping indoors.
Most of that was hotel timewith friends because two of us
sleeping in my car not going towork so well.
And then, uh, I did hotels 26times by myself and 19 of those
were because the dog.
Wow, wow.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
So when you slept in your car, where were your
typical locations, where youwhere you slept?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
That that was something typical locations
where you, where you slept.
That that was something that Ikind of had to work with every
single night.
I definitely went for walmartparking lots in these small
towns.
That works very well.
The bigger the city, the lesslikely they're going to
accommodate that, because peopleare trying to like permanently
camp and live in the parking lot, so they're really cracking
down on it.
Um, rest, rest areas.
Unfortunately almost neverhappened for me because in my
(17:46):
other trips around the countrywe were trying to get to
specific places the Capitolbuildings, cash across Americas
and we use the interstates.
So almost the entire time I wason the road I was never on an
interstate.
I'd cross it.
You know, if it ran east towest, I'd cross it north to
south and never see that restarea.
Um, we did a lot of waysiderests.
Um, I, south, never see thatrest area.
(18:06):
We did a lot of wayside rests.
Wisconsin was my favorite forthat.
They have wayside rest acrossthe entire state that you're
just able to park in any singleone of them and go to sleep and
stay there as long as you needto and get back on the road.
And then you've got states that, like california, they all the
rest areas are yeah, you're inand out eight hours.
That's all you got, and a lotof those are very heavily
managed.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Wow, we have a lot more very detailed questions.
I'm going to ask you anothersort of high level question and
if you're following the shownotes, we might go a little out
of order, nick.
So so here's the thing afterseeing the whole country, this
is kind of my number onequestion.
This is what I want to knowAfter seeing the whole country,
what new perspectives,perspectives do you have on our
(18:45):
country, on the people that livehere?
Was there anything about itthat changed in your mind?
What is your high level likewhen you think about our country
?
After seeing all of it?
Yeah, do you have any insightsfor us, because very few people
have ever experienced all of ourcountry.
(19:06):
I want to know that answer.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So I think a lot of people have this, this
perception of the country basedon the cities, because that's
what we see the most of.
They represent such a smallspace on the map compared to
these vast open landscapes wehave in places like Montana,
Wyoming, Utah.
I mean, when we got up to thetop of the grand staircase
(19:33):
Escalante, that was it.
It was just us out there and Ihad views for miles and miles
and I saw nothing that resembleshuman civilization.
It's.
It's a beautiful country thatwe have and I absolutely
encourage people, if they havethe opportunity, to get out
there, away from the city alittle bit, and go explore some
(19:53):
of those places that aren't asheavily traversed and find some
of those natural treasures,because they're there waiting to
be discovered.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
That is really insightful because, yeah, I
didn't really think about thatIn the world of geocaching, a
lot of our geocaches arecentered around.
You know city areas or suburbanareas and the nature of this
trip by visiting every county.
Most of the places that youwere were out of the city.
There were rural places.
So, yeah, that's reallyincredible insight that we have
(20:23):
a lot of space.
It's a big, big country.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And it really doesn't matter what state you're in.
There's something to explorenearby, there's some kind of
natural treasure hidden not toofar away.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
You just have to figure out where that is around,
like car travel around thisyear particularly.
And you know, nick, when itcomes to your planning, you are
a big planner.
I can see that, and that's allwell and good, but you had to go
off like on the fly sometimes,in regards to on a daily basis.
(20:55):
I mean, here you are, you'refinding a cache in every single
county itself.
So there's a plan.
You know the plan, you knowwhere to go your route, but
obviously things can happen.
You know you've got video to do, video to edit, for instance,
as well, stuff like that too.
So where did you?
Did you have your staysactually planned out themselves
(21:16):
or did you go off on the flymost of the nights?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So I've never been in the habit of planning my stays.
That's one part where SkeletorTenev and I kind of butted heads
because he plans his geocachingtrip around the hotels.
We're getting to that hoteltonight, even if it's 3 am For
me.
I'm like, hey, we're going tostop and make up the time later.
No-transcript.
(21:53):
But any plan requires theability to be flexed.
Any good plan anyway requiresthe ability to be flexible.
If you're too rigid on yourplan, you are setting yourself
up for failure the ability to beflexible.
If you're too rigid on yourplan, you are setting yourself
up for failure.
So I built cushion into my planspecifically to be able to
accommodate changes that happenalong the way.
Every two weeks I had an adminday built in where the day was
(22:17):
set aside for me to do videoediting catch up.
I knew that if I had laundry, Icould cut into that admin day
and I could catch up from there.
And then the other thing that Idid is I put parts in my plan
where I would have just a day toplay around the city.
I'd have.
A day in Boston I'd havewhatever the case may be.
(22:37):
If there was good lookinggeocaches and it was enough time
consuming stuff, I would justsay, hey, that day, and if I was
there on time, I could go andplay that day and I could just
hang out in that area and enjoythe gashes.
And if I was behind time, thatwas a day that I could easily
cut into and get myself back ontrack and that allowed me to
keep my schedule very consistent.
I was within a day or two,every single day right up until
(23:01):
April, and then I had to changethe whole entire thing.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
That's a great tip right there, josh, as well, for
anyone out there who's lookingat doing some.
Even, josh, you don't have tobe doing like a whole year of
travel here we're talking aboutEven if you want to, just to go
up and do a weekend escapesomewhere and you're driving
somewhere.
Have plans in place, but beflexible.
I think that's a great, greattip for any traveler out there.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Planning margin in your trip especially a trip like
this I mean, we're talking ayear.
This is a marathon.
This is a marathon of traveland if you don't plan rest or a
little bit of flexibility, I'mnot sure you're going to make
that's, nick.
Were there times where you feltburnt out by this trip?
(23:45):
Not that you were going tonecessarily give up, but you're
just like, wow, I just need to,I need to take a breather.
Or were there times whereyou're like, oh, I'm getting a
little burnt out?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Um, so early on in the trip, once I'd gotten
through Michigan and I'd stayedwith my friend Truax Outdoors
the entire stretch from therebetween Minnesota, north Dakota,
south Dakota, nebraska, iowaand Illinois, I had no meetups
planned with anybody Um, I wasjust me and the dog alone on the
(24:16):
road.
We did have one day where wemet a geocacher, um, and we
geocached with them all day andI was so grateful for that.
But by the time I got to theend of that period where it was
just me and the dog and Ifinally met another one of my
friends.
I was, I was tired and andhaving that human interaction
for just a couple of days gaveme the boost I needed to.
Okay, I got this, I can do this.
The real burnout came in April.
(24:41):
My dog got sick and she stoppedeating.
She wouldn't take any food forabout a week.
She stopped moving.
I had to pick her up and sether outside the car and she just
kind of squat position to usethe bathroom and then I had to
pick her back up and put herback in.
She wouldn't do anything elseand I'd gone to the doctor.
We ran every test on her.
(25:02):
It all came back.
Hey, your dog's perfectlyhealthy.
Um, so they gave me a Hail Maryof medicine.
I was administering stuff everytwo to three hours and I was at
the point of just giving up onthe video series.
I couldn't do it anymore.
Um, and then she startedbouncing back and when, as she
bounced back, my motivation cameback with her, but I I came
(25:24):
dangerously close to to quittingthere when she was on the ropes
, and rightfully so, likeroughly so it's just amazing the
amount of time you spend with adog for people that are dog
owners.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
You, you're, you're just connected.
So I'm sure your spirit wasvery just like connected with
aichen and and, um, yeah, when,when she wasn't doing well, you
weren't doing well, which is, um, that's no surprise at all.
Um, tell me some of the I'msure you ran to strangers and
you talk to strangers.
You talk about humaninteraction a lot and I I've
(25:57):
done some solo travel and I I'vegone lengths of time without
talking to a human being, whereI'm not naturally the kind of
guy that shoots the breeze withthe gas station attendant person
, but but it's just like thereis this human need for
interaction with strangers oranybody when you've been alone
for a while.
And so, uh, can you think ofone stranger that you met that
(26:19):
uh, uh, that you reallyconnected with or, like that,
surprised you, or they helpedyou, or uh, yeah, anybody come
to mind.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Gosh, I met tons of people on the road and, um, some
people just want to talk and ifthey want to talk, I I listened
, and sometimes that's allsomebody needs is somebody to
listen.
Uh, there was one guy that Imet.
It was fairly recently.
It was a trucker, carlos, andhe's actually in one of my
videos and he's on his own onthe road and he's just enjoying
(26:49):
the sights.
And I was at the same spot andwe started talking.
I told him about geocaching andhe gave me that geo what?
And like, well, there's,there's one about a quarter mile
away, you want to go find it?
And so off we go into thedesert and, oh, he's just as
happy as could be to find thatgeocache.
And I just have the suspicionthat I helped to create a
(27:10):
geocacher that's going to bekilling that county map very
shortly here.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Especially if he's a trucker.
He's looking at the map.
Oh, there's a lot on my route.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Absolutely, and truck stops especially.
I mean, unlike yourself, in mytravels I did do a lot of
interstate travels and so I diddo a lot of rest stops et cetera
as well.
And so same thing happensthough you get to a rest stop,
josh, and you get out of the car, and it's an excuse to get out
and actually walk around therest stop, you know, to find the
one or two caches that are inthe rest stop itself and then
(27:43):
grab all the munsies that arearound there too, that sort of
thing too.
So you know, for me that's whatit was all about.
But it's funny, nick, you weresaying that you got what do you
call it like?
You got solace, et cetera.
In talking to people I have theopposite, josh, believe it or
not, when I actually don't haveanyone around me, that's when I
(28:03):
I re reinvigorate myself.
Then, when I'm by myself,driving and caching and doing
other things as well, andtraveling, that's when I
actually invigorate myself, iswhen I'm by myself.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
So well, and I'm sure anybody that chooses to do this
.
There's a certain amount ofintroversion in them that
they're comfortable being aloneor with a dog, um, for an
extended period of time.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
So and I definitely agree with you, for you know, a
week, two weeks, being aloneit's invigorating.
A month, two months, you need alittle bit sure and that's
where.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
That's where the dog, though, is very, very handy.
As such as well, you starttalking to the dog like it's
another human being, and I meanto be honest, though, they are
more human than what we are.
But anyway, nick as well whenJosh was saying about how many
people you sort of spoke to, etcetera I find myself that when
you talk to people and youexplain to them, they always say
where are you from, what areyou doing?
(28:56):
You know that sort of thing,and you explain what you're
doing.
How many people out there,nicks, say these exact words?
And that is you're you.
You're living the life, you'vegot the life.
I want to do that.
How many people out there weresaying the same sort of thing?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
mate I, I actually didn't get that as much.
I've gotten that on other trips.
On this trip, when I would tellthem I'm geocat or I'm
traveling through every countyin the country, they would more
lean toward.
You're crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
And you are kind of crazy in a really really cool
way yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
A lot of people.
Almost they didn't understand.
I mean, you're going throughevery state.
No, no, I'm going through everycounty, Like all those little
tiny boxes within the states.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Are you sure some there?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
are some people out there as well.
They don't actually know aboutcounties too much, let's be
honest, unless there's a reasonfor them.
Like you know our lovely gameof geocaching, so I can see when
you say you know peopleunderstand going through every
state.
People go oh yeah, that'sreally cool going through it,
but when they, when you narrowit down even further like you do
, nick, that's insane.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
And I don't even tell people about the DeLorme pages,
because that's a whole otherlayer of an unknown to peel back
that even a lot of geocachesdon't quite understand.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Speaking of navigating through the counties,
some states, to me it seemslike really makes sense.
Like Iowa is south of here, soit's like they're all kind of
just like lined up in littleboxes.
Um, as you're navigatingthrough like a state like that,
are you literally just goinglike I'm making a?
You can't see the video, butI'm going back and forth with my
(30:32):
finger like turn around, golike lapping, like a yeah taking
laps like around a pool.
How did you?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
so what you just described, where you did the
zigzag back and forth, that'sactually pretty much what my
Iowa map looks like.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Oh, really, and my Michigan map as well.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
But I did it based on what was logical for my routing
, because I was starting in thenorth in New York and I was
staying north as long aspossible until it started to get
cold and then I would dropsouth.
So that master route firstdictated how I was going to
approach the states and thenwithin those states it was.
For example, there's twogeocaches that look like they're
(31:13):
really close.
There's a canyon between themthat's miles.
It looks like it's an eight miledrive, yeah.
So there's a lot of zigzaggingand out and back and weird
places, because it was the onlylogical way to access these
locations and I tried tooptimize my routing entirely
through the States.
So, again, states like Nebraska, north Dakota, south Dakota,
(31:36):
those ones that have more of theboxy counties like that, they
kind of resembles that becausethe roads follow those.
But when you get into some ofthe weirder states, like
Colorado for example, you've gotto circle around and do a lot
of stuff with the terrain thereto get where you need to go.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Wow, it sounds challenging.
It sounds like it takes a lotof planning.
Your name is MagPlanner.
What were some of thesurprising moments that you had
that you're like, wow, I, Ican't believe that happened.
Or, um, maybe it's a snafu.
Or yeah, I'm curious to to um,to have you talk about the
(32:14):
unplanned things that happened,um well the issue wise.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Um, in idaho I blew a tire on a mountain road.
It was this, I think the signsaid no stopping the next 15
miles.
Uh, risk of rock slides andavalanche right.
And so I'm driving through theroads.
There's snow piled on top ofthe rocks along the edges of the
roads and I'm coming aroundthis mountain bend and there's a
big rock on the road and I havetwo choices I can either hit
(32:42):
the rock or I can veer into theopposite lane of traffic along
this windy mountain road andhope that's not the moment that
a car is coming the otherdirection.
I wasn't willing to take thatrisk.
I hit the rock.
So then you know, I managed towrestle the car and I get it to
a safe spot and there I amchanging my tire under a just
straight slope filled with rocksand snow.
(33:03):
This is it.
This is going to be the moment,but somehow, some way we
managed to pull it out.
And we had another incident likethat in Nebraska near our last
day, and that was there's somany good people out there.
Um, I'm in the middle ofnowhere on these these back farm
roads, tires blowing.
(33:23):
I'm out there changing it andand these guys pull up.
We're talking, it's like one inthe morning.
They pull up in their truck andI'm torn between continuing to
change my tire and stand thereand defend myself yeah, yeah,
one in the morning yikes butthey, they were legitimately
there to help me.
And once I got the tire off and,um, I get the new one on, I'm
(33:46):
getting ready to do it, and theguy's like I got this, and he
pulls the tool out of his truckand tires back on and I was able
to get to the shop.
They pointed me to uh, down theroad and first thing in the
morning they they came in.
I was sleeping in my car, wokeup and changed my tire.
I was out of there within anhour from the time they woke up.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
When you first started saying that story, all I
thought of myself was that NCISsort of the beginning of any
sort of NCIS episode where thatsort of happens and that person
who's changing the tire is neverseen again.
It happens a lot in the goodold US of A, let's be honest.
But yeah, there are lots ofgood people out there, mate,
absolutely, absolutely.
(34:22):
What I was going to say istalking about the low stuff,
because some things like thathappen and at the time you go oh
no, I can't believe this ishappening to me.
It's a low in your travels, butthen something good can happen
out of it and it's a long-termmemory for you now as well that
you've actually met these lovelypeople out there who helped you
out, etc.
Etc.
As well.
You didn't die from anavalanche or rock fall, so
that's all good.
(34:43):
So, um, what other, what otherthings out there that you can
remember?
That kind of maybe started as alow, whatever, but again,
they're just memories now inyour actual, in your brain, mate
oh, um, that, that one's reallyeasy.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
So me mom came in and joined me, and we were trying
to cross the mountains ofCalifornia, the Sierra Nevadas,
and I was trying to take theeasiest pass to get over to
where we needed to go.
It was north of Fresno.
The road was closed, so I theneither had two options take a
mountain road or take whatamounted to like an eight-hour
(35:18):
detour.
So we went for the mountainroad and, um it, it continued to
get sketchier and sketchier andit it turned into like we were
just clearing the pass at thetop of the mountain.
I'm assessing the situation.
I go, you know we need to turnaround.
If I go further, this is goingto be.
I can sense it.
So.
So we did, we turned around, wewent around, we took the huge
(35:41):
detour I tried to avoid and weended up making it.
And, to add insult to injury,that day was the only day that
the motion stability on mycamera decided to stop working.
So I have all of this footageof us bumping and jostling along
these mountain roads, andalready, if you don't have
motion stability on your camera,even with normal shots, it's
(36:03):
bad.
My shots were.
They were horrendous, so Ididn't even sleep that night
when I discovered what hadhappened.
By the way, I learned newediting techniques that night.
I spent all night gettingmotion correction on that
footage and really the videoturned out phenomenally well.
Um and and I, I just I won'tforget, number one, how much fun
(36:24):
we had trying to get over thosemountains, and number two, just
how great it felt to be able toto take what was some of the
most awful footage I've evershot and salvage it and turn it
into a really good video.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Speaking of video, I'm gonna we're gonna talk about
this, yeah, because it's onething to visit every state, it's
another thing to visit everycounty.
It's another thing to make avideo a full size.
(37:14):
We're not talking creators inthis podcast here.
Tell us a little bit about thatand the reason you did it and
the challenges.
Yeah, talk about that a littlebit.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
So shy of my selfish reasons of wanting to get my dog
on camera.
My kids were at the age thatthey were watching a lot of
YouTube videos and I myselfsorry, I'm actually not a real
media consumer but I kind ofwanted to do something that they
could see the States the way Ido and see what I do, because
(37:47):
I've been doing this for years,since before either one of them
was born and they went with meon adventures when they were
young.
They've been kayaking andhiking in the backpack and stuff
.
But as they got older you know,old enough to remember these
things they didn't want to do itanymore.
So I figured I could at leastshow them the high points and
all the great things our countryhad and I could do it in a way
that would relate to them andsomething that'll stick around.
(38:09):
You know, 10, 20 years from nowthey can still look back and
see these things.
And when I got the idea and Idecided I was going to do that
it's important to note I'venever, ever edited videos before
.
So I did a lot of research, gotall the equipment I needed,
discovered my laptop wasincapable of processing 4K
(38:29):
videos.
I could have shot in 1080p.
I wanted good footage.
I wanted something that wascrystal clear and that I could
work with, and so I decided Iwas going to make that happen.
I got a better computer thatcould handle what I was trying
to do, and then I learned on thefly I would say to anybody who
gets out there and watches myseries cut me a little slack.
For the first 30 days I wastruly learning and every part of
(38:55):
that was a learning process howI wanted to shoot my clips,
narrating over the top of them,how to put together the videos.
My personality was awful.
In those first 30 videos Italked like a robot as I was
narrating.
But as I progressed throughthat because we all have to
start something as I progressedthrough that, I learned how I
(39:16):
like to make my shots, because Ialways try and have them in
motion.
I don't like the still shots.
I have those in my intros andconclusions when I'm showing
maps and stuff, but the rest ofmy videos are.
There's always motion andaction going on.
Um, and then I learned that ithelps from.
I wasn't ever really intendingto be on camera.
Uh, my intention was always tohave my dog on camera all the
time, but I know that you haveto be on camera sometimes if
(39:39):
you're going to be doing YouTubevideos, and I also learned that
those times where I pop intocamera and say something or show
something, those those reallyhelped me to make transitions to
the next place I'm going.
So I tried to shoot several ofthose a day just so I'd have
them to insert throughout theclips.
Um, as I got better at my videoediting techniques, I was able
to process clips faster and putthem together faster, and so I
(40:00):
started going longer on mycontent.
My first videos were only five,seven minutes each, because
that's all I could possiblyprocess in a day, and as I got
better at it, I pushed myfootage up to about 12 minutes
standard and then beyond that,anything else was too much for
me to edit and process and movewithin a day, and I kind of I
liked the consistency of it andI think I I ended up getting
(40:21):
pretty good not only with theshots I was doing and the
editing, but also givingpersonality to what I was doing.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Yeah, yeah, and there's no better way to get
better at something than doingit Exactly, exactly, just like
anything Practice.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Practice Practice.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
And, yeah, I really enjoyed the journey.
I haven't been able to catchall of them, but the cool thing
I can go back.
I did in preparation for this,for this interview.
I did go back to your firstvideo in Central Park because I
had done that cache before andyou're giving yourself not
enough credit.
You're, you're just fine inthat first video, but but, yeah,
(40:58):
we, yeah, we see, yeah, we seethe progression.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
it's just amazing and and josh, that's one of the
things I do love about followingvideo creators out there as
well and this is any sort ofvideo creator, not just
necessarily travel creations butyou follow them from the start
or when they first start and yousee, you see how, like, you've
got your foot well, you're oneup there still, josh.
So your very first one, thatyou did at the light pole under
the snow, you know, but it'sgood to see the progression and
(41:23):
to watch the progression and yousee the personality start to
come through.
You know all the way itself aswell.
And yeah, mate, I've actuallywatched a few of yours in
preparation for today too, and Idid the same thing.
I watched like one or two ofthe first, a couple in the
middle and then a couple at theend.
And, mate, your progression is,yeah, it's quality progression,
(41:45):
like it's good to see from aviewer's standpoint, to see
someone really start to relax oncamera.
You start to see who they are,what they're about, their love
for their dog, for instance, aswell.
You know that all comes throughand it's not just about finding
the cash, it's not just aboutthe journey.
To me it's more about how yougo about your day and the things
that you do during the day and,as I said before, I do love
(42:07):
overcoming these obstacles thatyou do every single day too.
Just saying that.
So yeah, well done, mate, welldone.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
And, as of this recording, he's 26 subscribers
away from 1,000 subscribers.
Come on, guys.
And so by the time thispublishes, I'm sure he's going
to be over the 1,000.
But if you're listening to this, find MagPlanner's YouTube
channel.
I'm sure if you just searchMagPlanner you'll find it.
(42:35):
Josh, josh, links in thedescription.
Links in the description.
Of course, the links will be inthe description, but yeah, it's
really.
I love following creators.
This is like the hero's journey.
It's more than just one video.
It's almost cathartic to justwatch a person progress over a
whole year, experiencing lifefor a whole year, especially
(42:57):
with our amazing hobby ofgeocaching.
So check it out Now.
Nick, we are big fans here onthe Treasures of Our Town
podcast.
Well, I'll speak for for myself.
I'm a big fan of roadside.
I knew you were going here, josh, I knew you we uh, nick, I
don't know if you heard we inmarch we had roadside attraction
(43:19):
march madness where we putroadside attractions in
competition with other roadsideattractions.
Um so go back to that episode.
But you had to run in.
When you're in these littlesmall towns or rural communities
off the beaten path, you've hadto run into some of these like
really interesting or funny orquirky roadside attractions.
Any of those stick out to you.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
So first of all, josh, I'mright there with you.
I love those roadsideattractions, yes, including, and
maybe even especially the oneswhere people are like, oh,
that's so corny, oh, I'm allover it.
And so that was a lot of myresearch, too, is finding all of
(44:00):
those, even if there wasn't ageocache at them.
The world's largest ball oftwine does have one, but if
there's a world's largestsomewhere that didn't have a
geocache but I knew it was onthe map, oh, it was on the list
if I was going near it.
Um, and I, I've seen countlessof those in my travels, but
there's, there's probably a fewthat I, I think, uh, would be
really good to highlight, abovesome of the others, some of
these small towns out there thatwill just really impress you.
(44:22):
Um, very top of my list wastaylor ne.
I would never have knownthere's there on a map.
I want to say the population'sdouble digits, if it's triple,
it's barely pushing.
But yet you come into this townand you feel like it's a
bustling town, because there'speople everywhere shopping at
the windows, they're salutingthe flags, they're heading to
(44:43):
the church, they're groceryshopping, they're playing in the
park and all of them areplywood cutouts.
This town has over 200 plywoodcutouts of people doing
activities all around the townand when I got there and I saw
it, I just immediately first Ihad to get out some napkins and
wipe the drool because, you know, I got to be on camera.
(45:04):
But after that I couldn't helpmyself.
I spent so long in that townhunting down as many of those
people as I could.
It was just so cool did theyhave names?
Speaker 1 (45:14):
did they have names or?
Speaker 2 (45:15):
do you?
I'm willing to bet.
But they weren't posted in away that you can see.
But I'm willing to bet.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Every single one of them had a name you know, you
know what that reminds me of.
This is going to be a deep, andI don't know if you've seen it,
but Steve Martin in the 80s hada movie called the Lonely Guy.
It was all about being a lonelyguy.
He didn't have any friends andso one of his lonely guy friends
there's the irony right he hada friend who said you got to get
(45:41):
some of these cardboard cutouts, so he filled his apartment
with cardboard cutouts ofcelebrities and stuff.
And he filled his apartmentwith like cardboard cutouts of
like celebrities and stuff.
And that's how he had partiesby himself with these cardboard
cutouts.
It kind of makes me wonder ifin Taylor, nebraska, the mayor
was a lonely guy.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
There you go.
One thing I do know for sure,craig, though is that that mayor
is probably proud of his town.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Oh geez, it's a rare thing these days.
There a another roadsideattraction I wanted to touch on,
but it wasn't one town okay so,so I I love patriotic displays
yes I will not pass at theveterans memorial in town um I.
I love seeing the walls filledwith names because you know it's
it's a way to help keep theirmemory alive.
(46:23):
For for what done Um?
And they have this project.
That's it's completed now, butit's been years, years in the
making.
Um in Iowa it's called thefreedom rocks and within every
County in Iowa there is a largerock Um.
It's almost always large,erratic Um, and there was an
artist that went from County toCounty and he painted each rock
(46:44):
with patriotic imagery uh,completely around it.
And there wasn't with patrioticimagery uh, completely around
it.
And there wasn't randompatriotic imagery, it was pulled
from history of the town,county, um, things like that.
And so a lot of them havegeocaches at or nearby um.
But I, once I figured out thiswas a thing I I started looking
across the map and adding alayer to my plan.
(47:05):
If I was anywhere within rangeof those freedom rocks, I was
deviating just to go find it andcatch some shots of it, because
I absolutely fell in love withthem josh, we did have, uh, this
on one of our podcast episodeslast year.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
it was, and I do believe it was dale and barb
when we had them on the show aswell, and then dale brought this
up about the freedom rocks too.
They are.
We did some research ourselveslater on, mate.
They look fantastic, nick, I'llbe honest with you, and yeah,
well done for looking them outfor them.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
You know who else brought it up was Olio in.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Iowa.
Oh, it was too.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Our Iowa expert.
Yes, we had two episodes aboutIowa.
Again, I was born in Iowa.
I'm proud of my state, butthere's a lot to see if you just
get out.
Just get out and explore it.
Another thing you mentioned waslet's go, let's stay in Iowa.
You visited Riverside Iowa,which I'm so glad you did.
(47:58):
Beam me up.
Are you a Trekkie?
Are you a Trekkie, Nick?
Speaker 2 (48:06):
I'm actually more on the Star Wars side of it.
I had met George Lucas at onepoint.
That's a whole different story.
It's not a good story, but Ihave always particularly been a
fan of Star Trek with CaptainPicard.
He was always my favoriteship's captain, captain Picard,
(48:28):
he was always my favorite ship'scaptain.
And so when COVID happened andwe were all locked up inside, I
got the entire thing and watchedend to end, every single
episode, and so maybe now I'mmore of a Trekkie than I was.
I absolutely love the series,but of course I'd seen all the
originals too.
So coming into Riverside andseeing Captain Kirk and Spock
and the original Enterprise andeverything in that town, it was
another place I could not leave.
(48:50):
I was almost stuck there.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
But for everyone else , josh, like myself, you know
who aren't really Trek fans andwhatever else.
What do you see at RiversideIowa?
Speaker 3 (49:02):
It's the future birthplace of Captain T Curry.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Oh, is this the place ?
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yes, oh, megan talked about megan, yeah and there's,
of course, a great geocache, isa statue there's a little like
like gravestone marker of theactual and I guess he was
conceived on the on the pooltable of one of the box oh,
what's the one that's the one.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
so the entire concept of Riverside came about by one
Trekkie.
He was a member of the citycouncil and he went to the other
city council members and I'vetried to picture myself in this
room when he's standing in frontof the city council and he goes
.
I have an idea for our town.
Let's make it all Star Trekthemed.
I can only imagine what theroom looked like in that moment.
(49:48):
But they rolled with it and itturned into something amazing.
But man, that must have been aconversation.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
It is a great tourism sort of hook, josh Especially.
Everyone knows a Trekkie fan ofsome degree.
So yeah, that's a massivetourism hook.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Yeah, and it is canon .
I know it's in Star trek 4where he mentions he was from
iowa, but they weren't theynever specified like what town,
so I'm sure riverside was likeit's us it's us, yeah, we're,
we're the ones this is where.
This is where he was born.
It's exactly how it happenedokay, so you've seen so many
(50:25):
amazing landscapes.
I'm sure, throughout the UnitedStates, Are there any
geological things?
You saw that you were just like, wow, this geological feature
is amazing.
That sticks out for you.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
I mean countless.
I could give you a list forhours on this.
I think the one though thatreally just jumped out at me it
was the oldest physical geocachein New Mexico, and I'm sorry if
I'm butchering the name, but Ithink it's Pajarito Springs and
it is down the canyon.
And when I say down the canyon,I mean it's down the canyon.
(51:02):
So you come up to the edge andyou just have this just amazing
view down and you're looking atthe geocache on the map from
what looks like the edge of thecliff and you're thinking this
is impossible.
How could somebody ever get downthere?
And there's a trail, so tospeak, and sure enough, you can
climb all the way down into thatcanyon.
(51:24):
And it was just, it was thegift that didn't stop giving the
entire way down, all the waydown into that canyon, and it
was just, it was the gift thatdidn't stop giving the entire
way down, all the way to thebottom.
Now, on the way up, it was darkand I didn't get any of that
view at that point.
It was terrifying.
But the way down, I would nothave traded that for anything.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
How did Aichen do on the way up, back on the way up?
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Oh, she loved to climb up Every step of the way.
On the way down, she waslooking at me like are you sure?
She's like I'm not pulling youback up, dad just saying Once I
turned around, she's like it'sthis way, let's go, come on,
we're out of here she was done.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
Was there any other geological features that you're
just like wow, that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
I don't know if I'd quite call it a geological
feature, but I'm going tobecause I want to talk on it.
In Pennsylvania they have thisthere's a couple geocaches there
, but it's called 1,000 stepsand it is first of all.
They're lying to you.
It's 1,043 steps.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
How dare they For anybody?
Speaker 2 (52:24):
out there that thinks , oh, it's only 43 extra steps.
I'll tell you, when you get tostep number 1,000, you notice
that difference right away, I'msure, but it was such an
incredible hike just going up tothe top of that thing.
And then, once you get thereand you've survived, and you get
to the top, and again it's thatamazing view where you go.
Okay, maybe it was worth it.
(52:45):
I wish those 43 steps weren'tthere, but this was something
that was worth doing.
I really enjoyed getting upthere and, um, the dog would not
hike those steps up.
She refused flat out.
She looked at me and she gaveme that, that look that I know.
So I put her in the backpackand I had her on my back the
entire way up to the top.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Wow, wow, what a good dad.
Yeah, so, nick, did youactually count the steps?
Is that how you know?
You know, you know that was1043?
.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
No, I did some research after the fact.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Oh, okay, here I'm thinking you actually counted,
mate.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
I can't count that well.
Heck, I did the tunnel of lightand you only have to count to
13 alcoves and I got to 13.
I go am.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
I at 11?
Speaker 2 (53:23):
Am I at 15?
I think it's a spot.
Let's just look.
If I couldn't keep that countto 13, I wasn't getting to 10 to
43.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
It wasn't going to happen.
So I'm going to go a littledeeper here.
So you did this youaccomplished this amazing feat.
You met people, you saw amazingplaces, you spent some quality
time with your dog.
What did you learn aboutyourself?
Was there anything that youchanged?
(53:52):
Do you have a differentperspective on life?
What are some of the deeperthings that I'm sure you're
still processing it at, you know, as you're wrapping?
Wrapping things up here?
But yeah, this is a what'd youlearn about yourself?
How did you?
Speaker 2 (54:06):
change.
I don't think my brain is fullycaught up to what I did.
I definitely learned that I amcapable of handling any
challenges thrown at me, nomatter what it was.
For instance, when I blew tires, I didn't beat myself up.
Oh no, what am I going to do?
(54:27):
Or the one, the one time I gotmy car stuck in the mud, I, I, I
problem solved and figure itout.
Um, that time you know it was,it was me, it was in the middle
of nowhere.
Um, either I figure out myproblems or I'm SOL.
So I, I go into the woods, Ifind a bunch of dead logs and
branches and one time I carrythem back and I create my own
ramp and I was able to get mycar out of the situation I was
(54:49):
in and free myself.
And that was I was.
The entirety of the journey islearning that there's nothing
that that we are not capable ofdoing If we set our minds to it
and we work toward it and we andwe don't let that, that voice
in our head that says, oh,you're going to fail.
Don't listen to that.
Tell yourself instead of, oh,it's so terrible, everything's
(55:11):
going wrong, how can I fix this?
What can I do to improve this.
What's the answer?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
What can be done.
That's some great advice there,nick, some fantastic advice.
And, like anything, stressitself If you stress over
something, you're not going tofix it.
So, like you said, just don'tstress.
Yeah, okay, this has happened.
How can I fix it?
How can we go about doing it?
So, yeah, don't stress.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
You're a great example of living life big.
I think so many people gothrough life just thinking, oh
that would they look at somebodylike you and they're like you
and they're like, oh, that wouldbe amazing to do.
I could never do that.
And they're wrong because theyhave such a small view of what
they could accomplish in theirlife and what they could do that
(55:53):
they put themselves in a box,and I want to applaud you, nick,
for not putting yourself in abox, doing something, setting a
goal, accomplishing it and justreally going for it and not
living small.
So I think what you did isamazing, but it also is just
very inspiring to whatever it is, and it doesn't have to be
(56:16):
visit every county in the UnitedStates.
For some people in our country,they've never left their state.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
So I'm really glad that you brought up that point,
because it wasn't planned thisway, but it was a recurring
theme that we saw throughout ourjourney and that I began to
talk about in certain videos,and it's it's that one, one
person with it, with an idea, adream, a goal and the drive to
do it, they can accomplishamazing things.
(56:45):
So many of the places that wewent through Freedom Rocks that
was one artist who went throughall those counties and did that
Mock Opulence, which is a veryhighly favorited geocache.
That is one person who puttogether that entire garden for
people to walk through and seeall these pieces of history of
the town, lake and Linland, allthe metal art sculptures that
you can drive through.
That was one person with adream and a goal and he was
(57:07):
opposed at every turn and hestill pushed forward and now he
created an amazing thing.
And we saw that over and overand over again throughout our
journey, as one person can makea big difference and, of course,
it's great if you have a teamand it's great if you can find
people to support you, but don'tfeel like you're not able to
accomplish anything by yourself,if you put your mind to it.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Will said Mike.
Will said Josh, we're a bit outof time, mike.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
Yeah, Nick, tell the people, tell the people.
We mentioned your YouTubechannel, but just tell the
people where they can find youand follow along on whatever's
next, whatever crazy thing youhave lined up next.
Where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (57:47):
So this may be our the end of our journey around
the United States, but it's onlythe beginning of our journey
around the world.
Now that I've I've gotten afeel for doing video series and
sharing my travels, I want tocontinue to do that and show
people the many great placesaround this world.
So we will be showing Japan wasshowing many places in Asia.
Eventually I'm going to becoming back for Alaska and
(58:07):
Hawaii, um, and we'll continuetouring around the world.
So, uh, please, please, go tothe YouTube and subscribe at mag
planner.
That's M-A-G-P-L-A-N-N-E-R, um,and that way you can stay in
tune for when our next journeycomes and we have some videos
coming your way.
I also have a website that I'veset up it's the mag plannercom,
(58:27):
and I have a lot of supportingresources because I want to make
this fully accessible forpeople so they can dig deep and
look in the details and see whathappens.
So all of the maps that I'velaid out they're all available
All of my geocache target lists,um, I've broken them down.
Each video is linked to thesetwo.
I've broken them down by Statesso you can look at how I
approached each state.
I have master lists so you canlook at the entire plan, the
(58:49):
budgets on there and every other.
Everything is accessible topeople, so I want them to be
able to kind of dig down and seethe detail work if they're
interested.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
He really is a planner, josh, and well done,
well done.
I'll link that to in the shownotes.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
Why do the planning when Nick's done it all for you
already?
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Exactly, he's the mag planner.
So there we go.
There we go, josh.
Patrons.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
We've got to mention patrons as well, if you've been
enjoying our podcast and, let'sbe honest, wow, this was a great
one.
Nick, you were such a greatguest.
Thank you If you're enjoyingthis.
We really appreciate yoursupport.
By supporting us, you help usto create even better content.
Keep it free for everyone, soconsider joining us at
patreoncom backslash treasuresof our town.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
And Josh, how else can people contact us if they
want to contact us?
Speaker 3 (59:38):
Feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our
town podcast at gmailcom, or youcan follow us on Facebook,
instagram, twitter and YouTube.
Speaker 1 (59:45):
So that's it for our show today.
Please subscribe, rate andreview on your favorite
podcasting app and, as always,Josh.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
May your travels always lead you to the most
unexpected and amazing hiddengems from around the world and
every county in the UnitedStates.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
Great job, Nick.
Thanks for being on.
Well done mate, See you nexttime.
Bye.
See you out on the trails, yeah.
He did 300, josh 337 consecutive days, found just
over 10,000 geocaches themselves.
Wow, 34 states he completed anddid 1,522 new counties.
So this averaged four and ahalf counties each day.
Wow, wow, wow, wow.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Do you love to travel ?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Do you love road trips?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all
over the USA?
Hi, I'm Joshua.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
And I'm Craig.
Welcome to Treasures of OurTown.
It's the podcast that exploresthe unique and charming towns
scattered throughout the UnitedStates.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Join us as we venture to some of the country's most
intriguing destinations,uncovering hidden gems and local
secrets along the way.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
On today's episode.
Josh, we're going to talk tosomeone that has visited every
county in the USA what, Notstate, what County as well.
So, yeah, we're going to chatwith that mag planner.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
uh, throughout the throughout today's episode, mate
, he has found every hiddentreasure there is to find in our
united states of america.
Um, how appropriate of a guestfor this show is this guy, nick.
I'm so excited to talk to him.
I've seen him and heard him onseveral other podcasts and I'm
(01:27):
excited that he's on our podcastto talk about the travel aspect
of it.
Yes, because he is, dare I say,avid geocacher.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
He is extremely extreme geocacher.
However, we'll try and guidehim, josh, a little bit away
from the types of things hefound, et cetera, and go more
about the places he's been.
I love that how he's went tothese places as well, where he
stayed.
You know that he's traveleditself.
He's traveled companions Evendown Josh I put there as well in
(01:58):
one of the show notes even downto like the food he ate and how
he budgeted for the whole tripas well.
So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I wonder if he found some throne rolls on his journey
.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Oh, we haven't put that in the show notes.
But keep that in mind.
I'll give you the hot tip rightthere.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure, mate.
Let's get on to the delays andupgrades.
For you and I shall we?
Yes, what do you?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
think Well, my upgrade and my delay are
connected.
Today, the day that we wererecording this, I have a midweek
day off.
Midweek Midweek day off.
We're recording this on June19th, which is Juneteenth, which
is a national holiday, and mycompany has the whole day off.
(02:43):
So I'm home out with yourecording the podcast and it's
great, but my delay is that I'veused this day so far to clean
bathrooms.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Bathrooms.
That means you've got more thanone in your house.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, so that was kind of a delay.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Especially when you've got like they're not
teenagers anymore, they'reactually adults.
So you've got like they're notteenagers anymore, they're
actually adults.
So you've got like five adultsnow in the household.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
They should all clean their own bathrooms.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
They don't, they don't do that.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So that's my delay and my upgrade.
How about you?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Mate, I'll start with my delay first, guess what More
car trouble.
That's right, more car.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Another $1,500 worth of car trouble.
Craig, are you consideringgetting rid of this thing?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Well, I was Josh, but now I'm so invested in it now
I'm deep into it now so I'm likewell, why bother getting it all
fixed up, just to sell it for?
Less than what I've paid for itso far.
That's tough, and then I'll getthe pleasure out of the next
few years having no traumas withit.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So we'll see that makes sense.
Bummer, that's a bummerExpensive delay too.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yes, yeah, one of which as well, was the so-called
repair that I got done inArizona.
That had to be replaced againnow since I've moved back.
So, yeah, that was another bigpart of the actual payment
itself as well.
But my upgrade made up for it,josh, because last weekend I
(04:16):
traveled up to north of NewJersey area, like near New
Brunswick area on the Friday,stayed overnight there as well,
because obviously playing a lotof Munzee around that sort of
area, but there was a big NewJersey mega and it was the last
one of their 10-year mega thatthey've hosted there at New
Brunswick, um on the weekend onSaturday.
So we were up there for that,met up with a lot of friends,
josh, a lot of people that youknow.
(04:37):
I've only met um a few of them,you know, face to face, here
and there.
Social media, mind you, um.
You know you talk to people onsocial media all the time, but
actually meeting them face toface and getting that, that
physical hug and that connectionwith people, you know that's
what you really miss where whenit comes to, you know, just
connecting on social media asopposed to in real life.
So there you go.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
That's well, that's my upgrade that looked like so
much fun.
And when I say looked like somuch fun and when I say looked
like so much fun, I saw thevideo you posted last night.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Are we promoting my videos again?
This is the second episode in arow that we've got to look up
my video.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You know this is an audio only podcast, but is this
podcast a supplement to ourvideos or are the videos a
supplement to our podcast?
I don't know.
But great video, as per usual.
Thank you, mike, especiallycapturing the sights and sound
of mega events and those thatare in the creation business,
(05:34):
the geocaching creation, videocreation business.
We know how challenging it canbe to cover a mega event,
because some of them are.
There's some very similaraspects of them, but you did a
great job, as loving that 360camera looks like.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
It looks like a drone sometimes.
I love that I know well, it'sgoing to get even better, josh,
because I got myself some newgear for it too.
Um, this week I got myself a uhtrying to think how many foot
it is.
It's over three meter pole forit, so I think that's I think
three metres.
I think that's roughly aroundthe 12 foot mark, so it's a 12
foot pole for it.
(06:09):
So it's going to look even moredrone-like.
You know it's going to gethigher than what it gets at the
moment with the current sistersetup.
But I did that video, josh, justwith the 360 as well no extra
audio, no microphones on it wasall through the actual camera
itself and I think it held upreally, really well.
(06:30):
I was very happy with it andit's one of those cameras where
it's small enough so it's notintrusive, so I can be filming.
I was filming the dogs, josh.
There's lots of dogs there.
I love the GeoPups, speaking ofwhich you've got Goliath with
you today.
Yeah, I'm filming the GeoPups,speaking of which you've got
Goliath with you today.
Yeah, filming the GeoPups nearthe ground, and it looks like
I'm just walking by.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
You can't see, as opposed to the big cameras that
I'm used to with you, where youcan look and you have to frame
it as you go.
And, yeah, it's a lot easierwith this little 360 camera.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I'll give it a tip there.
Well, it's awesome.
And speaking of video creation,geo video creation and dogs,
our guest, nick MagPlanner, iswith us to talk about his
year-long journey across theUnited States, visiting every
single county An amazing,amazing feat, and I'm excited to
(07:24):
chat with him.
Let's bring him in.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Welcome to the show thank you, gentlemen for having
me today wow, josh, I feel Ifeel very privileged yeah, I
feel very privileged actuallyseeing nick, uh as well, like
he's sitting back now, he'srelaxed, he's done his whole
trip and, uh, we're gonna deep,deep, deep, deep, deep dive.
Josh, we're going to deep diveinto some statistics in regards
(07:47):
to the way you traveled, how wetraveled, et cetera as well.
So, nick, mate, firstly, youwant to introduce yourself.
You know your full name or notyour full name, but how you got
MagPlanner as your geocachingname, et cetera, et cetera, and
go from there, mate, go for it.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
All right, I All right.
I started geocaching in 2010.
I had just left active duty andgone on to the private side as
a contractor for the MarineCorps.
I linked up with a major and weat the time you know I, we had
our names to the log, and so beit.
It wasn't until I logged thatfirst geocache and I saw that
smiley face here on the map.
(08:36):
I was like you know, I reallylike the way that looks.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna see if Ican add some more smiley faces
to my map.
And here we are.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And MAG Planner mate M-A-G Planner.
What does that stand for?
How did you get MAG Planner?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So my geocaching name is MAG TAF Planner.
That's M-A-G-T-F Planner.
It stands for Marine Air GroundTask Force Planner.
When I was active duty that wasmy military occupational
specialty.
And when I was active duty thatwas my military occupational
specialty.
And when I was transitioningout of the Marine Corps it just
kind of made sense that I wouldmake that my geocaching name.
When we were out in Bahrain andI liked it and stuck with it
(09:13):
and then I've really just beenMAGTF planner until I began this
channel and I decided to takethe TF out of there.
So I lose that Marine Corpsassociation.
It becomes my own.
For me, marine air ground is onthe sea, in the air, on the
land.
I think it works very well forwhat I do, because on this trip,
what we've done all three ofthose two on day 30 I jumped out
(09:35):
of an airplane, so I definitelyput the air and mag plan of
that so, nick, high, high levelhere, because we have a lot of
details to get through aboutthis amazing journey.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
What inspired you to do this?
This is quite a feat that youhave accomplished to visit, let
alone find, a geocache in everysingle county in the United
States.
What made you want to do this?
What inspired you?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Well, you know, like anything else, there's a lot of
contributing factors that wentinto it and I could break down a
bunch of those.
But what it comes down to, themain factor, I just wanted some
time with my dog.
I wanted to be able to show heroff on camera.
I wanted to do the video seriesso I could show the rest of the
world how amazing my dog is,and I really thought she was at
(10:26):
the end of her time when westarted on the road.
She was physically, she wasn'twalking around very well anymore
.
Her mind was starting to slip,and all the dog has ever wanted,
and all the time we've beentogether, is just to be there
with me, and I've always beengone traveling around the
country overseas, whatever thecase may be a lot of that for
work, and now's the time.
(10:47):
If I don't give her that timenow, I'm not going to have it.
So I put her in the car and Istarted the series and an
amazing thing happened when wewere on the road.
She physically got better.
She shaved years off as far asher ability to move and her mind
cleared up.
Wow, and then she she didn'thave any episodes at all the
entire time we were on the roadand she has since.
We've been stopped and we'vebeen doing things.
(11:07):
She's been starting to slipagain, but the entire time we
were on the road, not a singletime did she have an episode.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So I'm grateful that I did it.
What's her name, mate, and howold is she?
What sort of dog is she?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Her name is Aichan.
She's an Australian cattleherder basenji mix.
She's 16 years old now wow.
We adopted her as a rescue.
At about a year and a half wegot her out of the shelter and
you could tell she had someabuse in her past.
She had a lot of fears, um,especially when it came to metal
objects.
She wanted nothing to do withanything that was made out of
metal, which, living on thesecond floor in an apartment
(11:41):
building with a metal staircase,made it pretty interesting
first year.
But we were able to train herthrough those the bags that she
carried and then we were able totrain her to.
I say we trained her.
Let's be honest here.
The dog trained us.
Every time I tried to teach hera command, you could tell she
was trying to figure out what Iwanted, and then she would meet
(12:02):
me halfway and it was easy ascould be to get her to do
everything.
And then she made the perfectroad buddy for the last 14 years
.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
And it's amazing, just like humans, you give a
little fresh air, daily exercise, exploring new places, new
smells especially for.
Aichen and the health justincreases, which is just another
testament to this trip.
And just travel in general tochange your environment, explore
(12:32):
new things.
It is great for mental andphysical health and this seems
like it was very true for yourdog.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I met a couple of 90-year-old geocachers in
Arizona and I asked you know whyare you out here geocaching?
And the lady goes, because itkeeps me moving love that, love
it, love it, josh.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
we just quickly do some stats before we move on as
well.
I'll say this, I'll say this so, nick, you went from the 1st of
July in 2023 and you ended the1st of June 2024, so it's pretty
much like 11 months.
He did 300, josh 337consecutive days, found just
over 10,000 geocaches themselves34 states he completed and did
(13:14):
1,522 new counties.
So this averaged four and ahalf counties each day.
Wow, wow.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Wow, just think about the 10,000.
That's amazing.
That's a lot of geocaches.
Just imagine all the geocachesthat Nick just drove by.
Oh, yeah, yeah, he just wavedto them, waved to them so many,
probably more than 10,000certainly.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And those 10,000 geocaches none of that's power
runs.
The only time I ever touchedthem is if it happened across
the county or page I needed.
I'd go get two or three out ofthe run and then I'd move on.
Yes, so those are.
Those are legitimate finds outin the terrain, moving, moving
those miles none of the ethighway, josh.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
None of that is et highway business.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Maybe he did a few, although I I did the et highway
twice, but not this.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Okay, that's a different trip, yeah, and I've
watched many of your videos andI'm just really impressed,
because this is how I geocacheis.
I really go after quality.
So it seemed to me that whenyou got into that county, you
were like I'm going for old ones, I'm going for quality finds,
I'm going for interesting places, which kudos to you for for
(14:24):
like not having to be just aboutthe geocaching but about the
places that you decided to visit.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
That's what geocaching has always been for
me.
I've considered a locals tourof an area and I see it as a
great way to get out and seesome of the places that you're
not going to find on the touristbrochure, and it has brought me
to just the most amazing spots.
And that's what I tried to dowith my geocache plan, and
admittedly there were lampskirts in there when it was just
the best option to move through, but if there was something
(14:52):
better, it was happening.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
You're forgiven, nick .
You're forgiven, absolutely,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
One more stat, josh, before we move on as well.
Miles covered was just over100,000 miles.
Wow, how is your car like what?
What sort of vehicle did youhave nick as well, because we're
talking a hundred thousandmiles on a car in one year is
just insane.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
let's move on I own a mazda cx9 and, uh, it was a big
part of my planning of havingthat car because if I was
staying in hotels every night itwould have broke the bank.
It wasn't going to happen.
So I I I worked with a friendof mine and we tore the second
and third row seatings out thereup in his attic right now, and
(15:32):
he helped me build a base frameinto the car so that I'd have a
lower storage unit and made itflat completely behind the
passenger on the driver's seatall the way through the car to
the back.
And then we were able to putbins across the back of one side
plastic tote bins, so I couldhave eight of them on one side
of the car, and the other sideof the car was kept clear so
that I'd have about six feet ofroom to lay down at night.
(15:55):
Initially I thought my dog wasgoing to sleep in the passenger
seat in her dog bed.
That lasted exactly one night.
We cuddled every night afterthat.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Very good, mate, Very good.
I know myself.
I've done a similar sort ofthing with my Ford Explorer as
well.
I've got a Ford Explorer and,yeah, I ripped out all the back
seating.
I've got a nice level out nowas well, and it's a beautiful
place to sleep.
And you nest I call it nestingwhen you go to your location
where you literally park it up,Josh as well, and you close up
(16:24):
everything and you're just inthere in the back and no one
even knows you're there.
I mean, Nick, how many nightsdid you actually sort of sleep
on the road in comparison tohotels or stays like that?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So I actually had.
I have a lot of stats I've beenworking on over the last week
so I know the exact numbers here.
He's a planner.
I stayed 93 of those nightsindoors.
Not all of those nights werewith beds.
There were a lot of times whereit was like I was given a space
to sleep in, I could roll outmy bed mat and I could sleep
there with the dog.
And I spent 244 nights in thecar, so 72% of my time was in
(17:03):
the car and the rest wassleeping indoors.
Most of that was hotel timewith friends because two of us
sleeping in my car not going towork so well.
And then, uh, I did hotels 26times by myself and 19 of those
were because the dog.
Wow, wow.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
So when you slept in your car, where were your
typical locations, where youwhere you slept?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
That that was something typical locations
where you, where you slept.
That that was something that Ikind of had to work with every
single night.
I definitely went for walmartparking lots in these small
towns.
That works very well.
The bigger the city, the lesslikely they're going to
accommodate that, because peopleare trying to like permanently
camp and live in the parking lot, so they're really cracking
down on it.
Um, rest, rest areas.
Unfortunately almost neverhappened for me because in my
(17:46):
other trips around the countrywe were trying to get to
specific places the Capitolbuildings, cash across Americas
and we use the interstates.
So almost the entire time I wason the road I was never on an
interstate.
I'd cross it.
You know, if it ran east towest, I'd cross it north to
south and never see that restarea.
Um, we did a lot of waysiderests.
Um, I, south, never see thatrest area.
(18:06):
We did a lot of wayside rests.
Wisconsin was my favorite forthat.
They have wayside rest acrossthe entire state that you're
just able to park in any singleone of them and go to sleep and
stay there as long as you needto and get back on the road.
And then you've got states that, like california, they all the
rest areas are yeah, you're inand out eight hours.
That's all you got, and a lotof those are very heavily
managed.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Wow, we have a lot more very detailed questions.
I'm going to ask you anothersort of high level question and
if you're following the shownotes, we might go a little out
of order, nick.
So so here's the thing afterseeing the whole country, this
is kind of my number onequestion.
This is what I want to knowAfter seeing the whole country,
what new perspectives,perspectives do you have on our
(18:45):
country, on the people that livehere?
Was there anything about itthat changed in your mind?
What is your high level likewhen you think about our country
?
After seeing all of it?
Yeah, do you have any insightsfor us, because very few people
have ever experienced all of ourcountry.
(19:06):
I want to know that answer.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So I think a lot of people have this, this
perception of the country basedon the cities, because that's
what we see the most of.
They represent such a smallspace on the map compared to
these vast open landscapes wehave in places like Montana,
Wyoming, Utah.
I mean, when we got up to thetop of the grand staircase
(19:33):
Escalante, that was it.
It was just us out there and Ihad views for miles and miles
and I saw nothing that resembleshuman civilization.
It's.
It's a beautiful country thatwe have and I absolutely
encourage people, if they havethe opportunity, to get out
there, away from the city alittle bit, and go explore some
(19:53):
of those places that aren't asheavily traversed and find some
of those natural treasures,because they're there waiting to
be discovered.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
That is really insightful because, yeah, I
didn't really think about thatIn the world of geocaching, a
lot of our geocaches arecentered around.
You know city areas or suburbanareas and the nature of this
trip by visiting every county.
Most of the places that youwere were out of the city.
There were rural places.
So, yeah, that's reallyincredible insight that we have
(20:23):
a lot of space.
It's a big, big country.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And it really doesn't matter what state you're in.
There's something to explorenearby, there's some kind of
natural treasure hidden not toofar away.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
You just have to figure out where that is around,
like car travel around thisyear particularly.
And you know, nick, when itcomes to your planning, you are
a big planner.
I can see that, and that's allwell and good, but you had to go
off like on the fly sometimes,in regards to on a daily basis.
(20:55):
I mean, here you are, you'refinding a cache in every single
county itself.
So there's a plan.
You know the plan, you knowwhere to go your route, but
obviously things can happen.
You know you've got video to do, video to edit, for instance,
as well, stuff like that too.
So where did you?
Did you have your staysactually planned out themselves
(21:16):
or did you go off on the flymost of the nights?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So I've never been in the habit of planning my stays.
That's one part where SkeletorTenev and I kind of butted heads
because he plans his geocachingtrip around the hotels.
We're getting to that hoteltonight, even if it's 3 am For
me.
I'm like, hey, we're going tostop and make up the time later.
No-transcript.
(21:53):
But any plan requires theability to be flexed.
Any good plan anyway requiresthe ability to be flexible.
If you're too rigid on yourplan, you are setting yourself
up for failure the ability to beflexible.
If you're too rigid on yourplan, you are setting yourself
up for failure.
So I built cushion into my planspecifically to be able to
accommodate changes that happenalong the way.
Every two weeks I had an adminday built in where the day was
(22:17):
set aside for me to do videoediting catch up.
I knew that if I had laundry, Icould cut into that admin day
and I could catch up from there.
And then the other thing that Idid is I put parts in my plan
where I would have just a day toplay around the city.
I'd have.
A day in Boston I'd havewhatever the case may be.
(22:37):
If there was good lookinggeocaches and it was enough time
consuming stuff, I would justsay, hey, that day, and if I was
there on time, I could go andplay that day and I could just
hang out in that area and enjoythe gashes.
And if I was behind time, thatwas a day that I could easily
cut into and get myself back ontrack and that allowed me to
keep my schedule very consistent.
I was within a day or two,every single day right up until
(23:01):
April, and then I had to changethe whole entire thing.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
That's a great tip right there, josh, as well, for
anyone out there who's lookingat doing some.
Even, josh, you don't have tobe doing like a whole year of
travel here we're talking aboutEven if you want to, just to go
up and do a weekend escapesomewhere and you're driving
somewhere.
Have plans in place, but beflexible.
I think that's a great, greattip for any traveler out there.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Planning margin in your trip especially a trip like
this I mean, we're talking ayear.
This is a marathon.
This is a marathon of traveland if you don't plan rest or a
little bit of flexibility, I'mnot sure you're going to make
that's, nick.
Were there times where you feltburnt out by this trip?
(23:45):
Not that you were going tonecessarily give up, but you're
just like, wow, I just need to,I need to take a breather.
Or were there times whereyou're like, oh, I'm getting a
little burnt out?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Um, so early on in the trip, once I'd gotten
through Michigan and I'd stayedwith my friend Truax Outdoors
the entire stretch from therebetween Minnesota, north Dakota,
south Dakota, nebraska, iowaand Illinois, I had no meetups
planned with anybody Um, I wasjust me and the dog alone on the
(24:16):
road.
We did have one day where wemet a geocacher, um, and we
geocached with them all day andI was so grateful for that.
But by the time I got to theend of that period where it was
just me and the dog and Ifinally met another one of my
friends.
I was, I was tired and andhaving that human interaction
for just a couple of days gaveme the boost I needed to.
Okay, I got this, I can do this.
The real burnout came in April.
(24:41):
My dog got sick and she stoppedeating.
She wouldn't take any food forabout a week.
She stopped moving.
I had to pick her up and sether outside the car and she just
kind of squat position to usethe bathroom and then I had to
pick her back up and put herback in.
She wouldn't do anything elseand I'd gone to the doctor.
We ran every test on her.
(25:02):
It all came back.
Hey, your dog's perfectlyhealthy.
Um, so they gave me a Hail Maryof medicine.
I was administering stuff everytwo to three hours and I was at
the point of just giving up onthe video series.
I couldn't do it anymore.
Um, and then she startedbouncing back and when, as she
bounced back, my motivation cameback with her, but I I came
(25:24):
dangerously close to to quittingthere when she was on the ropes
, and rightfully so, likeroughly so it's just amazing the
amount of time you spend with adog for people that are dog
owners.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
You, you're, you're just connected.
So I'm sure your spirit wasvery just like connected with
aichen and and, um, yeah, when,when she wasn't doing well, you
weren't doing well, which is, um, that's no surprise at all.
Um, tell me some of the I'msure you ran to strangers and
you talk to strangers.
You talk about humaninteraction a lot and I I've
(25:57):
done some solo travel and I I'vegone lengths of time without
talking to a human being, whereI'm not naturally the kind of
guy that shoots the breeze withthe gas station attendant person
, but but it's just like thereis this human need for
interaction with strangers oranybody when you've been alone
for a while.
And so, uh, can you think ofone stranger that you met that
(26:19):
uh, uh, that you reallyconnected with or, like that,
surprised you, or they helpedyou, or uh, yeah, anybody come
to mind.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Gosh, I met tons of people on the road and, um, some
people just want to talk and ifthey want to talk, I I listened
, and sometimes that's allsomebody needs is somebody to
listen.
Uh, there was one guy that Imet.
It was fairly recently.
It was a trucker, carlos, andhe's actually in one of my
videos and he's on his own onthe road and he's just enjoying
(26:49):
the sights.
And I was at the same spot andwe started talking.
I told him about geocaching andhe gave me that geo what?
And like, well, there's,there's one about a quarter mile
away, you want to go find it?
And so off we go into thedesert and, oh, he's just as
happy as could be to find thatgeocache.
And I just have the suspicionthat I helped to create a
(27:10):
geocacher that's going to bekilling that county map very
shortly here.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Especially if he's a trucker.
He's looking at the map.
Oh, there's a lot on my route.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Absolutely, and truck stops especially.
I mean, unlike yourself, in mytravels I did do a lot of
interstate travels and so I diddo a lot of rest stops et cetera
as well.
And so same thing happensthough you get to a rest stop,
josh, and you get out of the car, and it's an excuse to get out
and actually walk around therest stop, you know, to find the
one or two caches that are inthe rest stop itself and then
(27:43):
grab all the munsies that arearound there too, that sort of
thing too.
So you know, for me that's whatit was all about.
But it's funny, nick, you weresaying that you got what do you
call it like?
You got solace, et cetera.
In talking to people I have theopposite, josh, believe it or
not, when I actually don't haveanyone around me, that's when I
(28:03):
I re reinvigorate myself.
Then, when I'm by myself,driving and caching and doing
other things as well, andtraveling, that's when I
actually invigorate myself, iswhen I'm by myself.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
So well, and I'm sure anybody that chooses to do this
.
There's a certain amount ofintroversion in them that
they're comfortable being aloneor with a dog, um, for an
extended period of time.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
So and I definitely agree with you, for you know, a
week, two weeks, being aloneit's invigorating.
A month, two months, you need alittle bit sure and that's
where.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
That's where the dog, though, is very, very handy.
As such as well, you starttalking to the dog like it's
another human being, and I meanto be honest, though, they are
more human than what we are.
But anyway, nick as well whenJosh was saying about how many
people you sort of spoke to, etcetera I find myself that when
you talk to people and youexplain to them, they always say
where are you from, what areyou doing?
(28:56):
You know that sort of thing,and you explain what you're
doing.
How many people out there,nicks, say these exact words?
And that is you're you.
You're living the life, you'vegot the life.
I want to do that.
How many people out there weresaying the same sort of thing?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
mate I, I actually didn't get that as much.
I've gotten that on other trips.
On this trip, when I would tellthem I'm geocat or I'm
traveling through every countyin the country, they would more
lean toward.
You're crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
And you are kind of crazy in a really really cool
way yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
A lot of people.
Almost they didn't understand.
I mean, you're going throughevery state.
No, no, I'm going through everycounty, Like all those little
tiny boxes within the states.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Are you sure some there?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
are some people out there as well.
They don't actually know aboutcounties too much, let's be
honest, unless there's a reasonfor them.
Like you know our lovely gameof geocaching, so I can see when
you say you know peopleunderstand going through every
state.
People go oh yeah, that'sreally cool going through it,
but when they, when you narrowit down even further like you do
, nick, that's insane.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
And I don't even tell people about the DeLorme pages,
because that's a whole otherlayer of an unknown to peel back
that even a lot of geocachesdon't quite understand.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Speaking of navigating through the counties,
some states, to me it seemslike really makes sense.
Like Iowa is south of here, soit's like they're all kind of
just like lined up in littleboxes.
Um, as you're navigatingthrough like a state like that,
are you literally just goinglike I'm making a?
You can't see the video, butI'm going back and forth with my
(30:32):
finger like turn around, golike lapping, like a yeah taking
laps like around a pool.
How did you?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
so what you just described, where you did the
zigzag back and forth, that'sactually pretty much what my
Iowa map looks like.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Oh, really, and my Michigan map as well.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
But I did it based on what was logical for my routing
, because I was starting in thenorth in New York and I was
staying north as long aspossible until it started to get
cold and then I would dropsouth.
So that master route firstdictated how I was going to
approach the states and thenwithin those states it was.
For example, there's twogeocaches that look like they're
(31:13):
really close.
There's a canyon between themthat's miles.
It looks like it's an eight miledrive, yeah.
So there's a lot of zigzaggingand out and back and weird
places, because it was the onlylogical way to access these
locations and I tried tooptimize my routing entirely
through the States.
So, again, states like Nebraska, north Dakota, south Dakota,
(31:36):
those ones that have more of theboxy counties like that, they
kind of resembles that becausethe roads follow those.
But when you get into some ofthe weirder states, like
Colorado for example, you've gotto circle around and do a lot
of stuff with the terrain thereto get where you need to go.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Wow, it sounds challenging.
It sounds like it takes a lotof planning.
Your name is MagPlanner.
What were some of thesurprising moments that you had
that you're like, wow, I, Ican't believe that happened.
Or, um, maybe it's a snafu.
Or yeah, I'm curious to to um,to have you talk about the
(32:14):
unplanned things that happened,um well the issue wise.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Um, in idaho I blew a tire on a mountain road.
It was this, I think the signsaid no stopping the next 15
miles.
Uh, risk of rock slides andavalanche right.
And so I'm driving through theroads.
There's snow piled on top ofthe rocks along the edges of the
roads and I'm coming aroundthis mountain bend and there's a
big rock on the road and I havetwo choices I can either hit
(32:42):
the rock or I can veer into theopposite lane of traffic along
this windy mountain road andhope that's not the moment that
a car is coming the otherdirection.
I wasn't willing to take thatrisk.
I hit the rock.
So then you know, I managed towrestle the car and I get it to
a safe spot and there I amchanging my tire under a just
straight slope filled with rocksand snow.
(33:03):
This is it.
This is going to be the moment,but somehow, some way we
managed to pull it out.
And we had another incident likethat in Nebraska near our last
day, and that was there's somany good people out there.
Um, I'm in the middle ofnowhere on these these back farm
roads, tires blowing.
(33:23):
I'm out there changing it andand these guys pull up.
We're talking, it's like one inthe morning.
They pull up in their truck andI'm torn between continuing to
change my tire and stand thereand defend myself yeah, yeah,
one in the morning yikes butthey, they were legitimately
there to help me.
And once I got the tire off and,um, I get the new one on, I'm
(33:46):
getting ready to do it, and theguy's like I got this, and he
pulls the tool out of his truckand tires back on and I was able
to get to the shop.
They pointed me to uh, down theroad and first thing in the
morning they they came in.
I was sleeping in my car, wokeup and changed my tire.
I was out of there within anhour from the time they woke up.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
When you first started saying that story, all I
thought of myself was that NCISsort of the beginning of any
sort of NCIS episode where thatsort of happens and that person
who's changing the tire is neverseen again.
It happens a lot in the goodold US of A, let's be honest.
But yeah, there are lots ofgood people out there, mate,
absolutely, absolutely.
(34:22):
What I was going to say istalking about the low stuff,
because some things like thathappen and at the time you go oh
no, I can't believe this ishappening to me.
It's a low in your travels, butthen something good can happen
out of it and it's a long-termmemory for you now as well that
you've actually met these lovelypeople out there who helped you
out, etc.
Etc.
As well.
You didn't die from anavalanche or rock fall, so
that's all good.
(34:43):
So, um, what other, what otherthings out there that you can
remember?
That kind of maybe started as alow, whatever, but again,
they're just memories now inyour actual, in your brain, mate
oh, um, that, that one's reallyeasy.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
So me mom came in and joined me, and we were trying
to cross the mountains ofCalifornia, the Sierra Nevadas,
and I was trying to take theeasiest pass to get over to
where we needed to go.
It was north of Fresno.
The road was closed, so I theneither had two options take a
mountain road or take whatamounted to like an eight-hour
(35:18):
detour.
So we went for the mountainroad and, um it, it continued to
get sketchier and sketchier andit it turned into like we were
just clearing the pass at thetop of the mountain.
I'm assessing the situation.
I go, you know we need to turnaround.
If I go further, this is goingto be.
I can sense it.
So.
So we did, we turned around, wewent around, we took the huge
(35:41):
detour I tried to avoid and weended up making it.
And, to add insult to injury,that day was the only day that
the motion stability on mycamera decided to stop working.
So I have all of this footageof us bumping and jostling along
these mountain roads, andalready, if you don't have
motion stability on your camera,even with normal shots, it's
(36:03):
bad.
My shots were.
They were horrendous, so Ididn't even sleep that night
when I discovered what hadhappened.
By the way, I learned newediting techniques that night.
I spent all night gettingmotion correction on that
footage and really the videoturned out phenomenally well.
Um and and I, I just I won'tforget, number one, how much fun
(36:24):
we had trying to get over thosemountains, and number two, just
how great it felt to be able toto take what was some of the
most awful footage I've evershot and salvage it and turn it
into a really good video.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Speaking of video, I'm gonna we're gonna talk about
this, yeah, because it's onething to visit every state, it's
another thing to visit everycounty.
It's another thing to make avideo a full size.
(37:14):
We're not talking creators inthis podcast here.
Tell us a little bit about thatand the reason you did it and
the challenges.
Yeah, talk about that a littlebit.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
So shy of my selfish reasons of wanting to get my dog
on camera.
My kids were at the age thatthey were watching a lot of
YouTube videos and I myselfsorry, I'm actually not a real
media consumer but I kind ofwanted to do something that they
could see the States the way Ido and see what I do, because
(37:47):
I've been doing this for years,since before either one of them
was born and they went with meon adventures when they were
young.
They've been kayaking andhiking in the backpack and stuff
.
But as they got older you know,old enough to remember these
things they didn't want to do itanymore.
So I figured I could at leastshow them the high points and
all the great things our countryhad and I could do it in a way
that would relate to them andsomething that'll stick around.
(38:09):
You know, 10, 20 years from nowthey can still look back and
see these things.
And when I got the idea and Idecided I was going to do that
it's important to note I'venever, ever edited videos before
.
So I did a lot of research, gotall the equipment I needed,
discovered my laptop wasincapable of processing 4K
(38:29):
videos.
I could have shot in 1080p.
I wanted good footage.
I wanted something that wascrystal clear and that I could
work with, and so I decided Iwas going to make that happen.
I got a better computer thatcould handle what I was trying
to do, and then I learned on thefly I would say to anybody who
gets out there and watches myseries cut me a little slack.
For the first 30 days I wastruly learning and every part of
(38:55):
that was a learning process howI wanted to shoot my clips,
narrating over the top of them,how to put together the videos.
My personality was awful.
In those first 30 videos Italked like a robot as I was
narrating.
But as I progressed throughthat because we all have to
start something as I progressedthrough that, I learned how I
(39:16):
like to make my shots, because Ialways try and have them in
motion.
I don't like the still shots.
I have those in my intros andconclusions when I'm showing
maps and stuff, but the rest ofmy videos are.
There's always motion andaction going on.
Um, and then I learned that ithelps from.
I wasn't ever really intendingto be on camera.
Uh, my intention was always tohave my dog on camera all the
time, but I know that you haveto be on camera sometimes if
(39:39):
you're going to be doing YouTubevideos, and I also learned that
those times where I pop intocamera and say something or show
something, those those reallyhelped me to make transitions to
the next place I'm going.
So I tried to shoot several ofthose a day just so I'd have
them to insert throughout theclips.
Um, as I got better at my videoediting techniques, I was able
to process clips faster and putthem together faster, and so I
(40:00):
started going longer on mycontent.
My first videos were only five,seven minutes each, because
that's all I could possiblyprocess in a day, and as I got
better at it, I pushed myfootage up to about 12 minutes
standard and then beyond that,anything else was too much for
me to edit and process and movewithin a day, and I kind of I
liked the consistency of it andI think I I ended up getting
(40:21):
pretty good not only with theshots I was doing and the
editing, but also givingpersonality to what I was doing.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Yeah, yeah, and there's no better way to get
better at something than doingit Exactly, exactly, just like
anything Practice.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Practice Practice.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
And, yeah, I really enjoyed the journey.
I haven't been able to catchall of them, but the cool thing
I can go back.
I did in preparation for this,for this interview.
I did go back to your firstvideo in Central Park because I
had done that cache before andyou're giving yourself not
enough credit.
You're, you're just fine inthat first video, but but, yeah,
(40:58):
we, yeah, we see, yeah, we seethe progression.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
it's just amazing and and josh, that's one of the
things I do love about followingvideo creators out there as
well and this is any sort ofvideo creator, not just
necessarily travel creations butyou follow them from the start
or when they first start and yousee, you see how, like, you've
got your foot well, you're oneup there still, josh.
So your very first one, thatyou did at the light pole under
the snow, you know, but it'sgood to see the progression and
(41:23):
to watch the progression and yousee the personality start to
come through.
You know all the way itself aswell.
And yeah, mate, I've actuallywatched a few of yours in
preparation for today too, and Idid the same thing.
I watched like one or two ofthe first, a couple in the
middle and then a couple at theend.
And, mate, your progression is,yeah, it's quality progression,
(41:45):
like it's good to see from aviewer's standpoint, to see
someone really start to relax oncamera.
You start to see who they are,what they're about, their love
for their dog, for instance, aswell.
You know that all comes throughand it's not just about finding
the cash, it's not just aboutthe journey.
To me it's more about how yougo about your day and the things
that you do during the day and,as I said before, I do love
(42:07):
overcoming these obstacles thatyou do every single day too.
Just saying that.
So yeah, well done, mate, welldone.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
And, as of this recording, he's 26 subscribers
away from 1,000 subscribers.
Come on, guys.
And so by the time thispublishes, I'm sure he's going
to be over the 1,000.
But if you're listening to this, find MagPlanner's YouTube
channel.
I'm sure if you just searchMagPlanner you'll find it.
(42:35):
Josh, josh, links in thedescription.
Links in the description.
Of course, the links will be inthe description, but yeah, it's
really.
I love following creators.
This is like the hero's journey.
It's more than just one video.
It's almost cathartic to justwatch a person progress over a
whole year, experiencing lifefor a whole year, especially
(42:57):
with our amazing hobby ofgeocaching.
So check it out Now.
Nick, we are big fans here onthe Treasures of Our Town
podcast.
Well, I'll speak for for myself.
I'm a big fan of roadside.
I knew you were going here, josh, I knew you we uh, nick, I
don't know if you heard we inmarch we had roadside attraction
(43:19):
march madness where we putroadside attractions in
competition with other roadsideattractions.
Um so go back to that episode.
But you had to run in.
When you're in these littlesmall towns or rural communities
off the beaten path, you've hadto run into some of these like
really interesting or funny orquirky roadside attractions.
Any of those stick out to you.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
So first of all, josh, I'mright there with you.
I love those roadsideattractions, yes, including, and
maybe even especially the oneswhere people are like, oh,
that's so corny, oh, I'm allover it.
And so that was a lot of myresearch, too, is finding all of
(44:00):
those, even if there wasn't ageocache at them.
The world's largest ball oftwine does have one, but if
there's a world's largestsomewhere that didn't have a
geocache but I knew it was onthe map, oh, it was on the list
if I was going near it.
Um, and I, I've seen countlessof those in my travels, but
there's, there's probably a fewthat I, I think, uh, would be
really good to highlight, abovesome of the others, some of
these small towns out there thatwill just really impress you.
(44:22):
Um, very top of my list wastaylor ne.
I would never have knownthere's there on a map.
I want to say the population'sdouble digits, if it's triple,
it's barely pushing.
But yet you come into this townand you feel like it's a
bustling town, because there'speople everywhere shopping at
the windows, they're salutingthe flags, they're heading to
(44:43):
the church, they're groceryshopping, they're playing in the
park and all of them areplywood cutouts.
This town has over 200 plywoodcutouts of people doing
activities all around the townand when I got there and I saw
it, I just immediately first Ihad to get out some napkins and
wipe the drool because, you know, I got to be on camera.
(45:04):
But after that I couldn't helpmyself.
I spent so long in that townhunting down as many of those
people as I could.
It was just so cool did theyhave names?
Speaker 1 (45:14):
did they have names or?
Speaker 2 (45:15):
do you?
I'm willing to bet.
But they weren't posted in away that you can see.
But I'm willing to bet.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Every single one of them had a name you know, you
know what that reminds me of.
This is going to be a deep, andI don't know if you've seen it,
but Steve Martin in the 80s hada movie called the Lonely Guy.
It was all about being a lonelyguy.
He didn't have any friends andso one of his lonely guy friends
there's the irony right he hada friend who said you got to get
(45:41):
some of these cardboard cutouts, so he filled his apartment
with cardboard cutouts ofcelebrities and stuff.
And he filled his apartmentwith like cardboard cutouts of
like celebrities and stuff.
And that's how he had partiesby himself with these cardboard
cutouts.
It kind of makes me wonder ifin Taylor, nebraska, the mayor
was a lonely guy.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
There you go.
One thing I do know for sure,craig, though is that that mayor
is probably proud of his town.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Oh geez, it's a rare thing these days.
There a another roadsideattraction I wanted to touch on,
but it wasn't one town okay so,so I I love patriotic displays
yes I will not pass at theveterans memorial in town um I.
I love seeing the walls filledwith names because you know it's
it's a way to help keep theirmemory alive.
(46:23):
For for what done Um?
And they have this project.
That's it's completed now, butit's been years, years in the
making.
Um in Iowa it's called thefreedom rocks and within every
County in Iowa there is a largerock Um.
It's almost always large,erratic Um, and there was an
artist that went from County toCounty and he painted each rock
(46:44):
with patriotic imagery uh,completely around it.
And there wasn't with patrioticimagery uh, completely around
it.
And there wasn't randompatriotic imagery, it was pulled
from history of the town,county, um, things like that.
And so a lot of them havegeocaches at or nearby um.
But I, once I figured out thiswas a thing I I started looking
across the map and adding alayer to my plan.
(47:05):
If I was anywhere within rangeof those freedom rocks, I was
deviating just to go find it andcatch some shots of it, because
I absolutely fell in love withthem josh, we did have, uh, this
on one of our podcast episodeslast year.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
it was, and I do believe it was dale and barb
when we had them on the show aswell, and then dale brought this
up about the freedom rocks too.
They are.
We did some research ourselveslater on, mate.
They look fantastic, nick, I'llbe honest with you, and yeah,
well done for looking them outfor them.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
You know who else brought it up was Olio in.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Iowa.
Oh, it was too.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Our Iowa expert.
Yes, we had two episodes aboutIowa.
Again, I was born in Iowa.
I'm proud of my state, butthere's a lot to see if you just
get out.
Just get out and explore it.
Another thing you mentioned waslet's go, let's stay in Iowa.
You visited Riverside Iowa,which I'm so glad you did.
(47:58):
Beam me up.
Are you a Trekkie?
Are you a Trekkie, Nick?
Speaker 2 (48:06):
I'm actually more on the Star Wars side of it.
I had met George Lucas at onepoint.
That's a whole different story.
It's not a good story, but Ihave always particularly been a
fan of Star Trek with CaptainPicard.
He was always my favoriteship's captain, captain Picard,
(48:28):
he was always my favorite ship'scaptain.
And so when COVID happened andwe were all locked up inside, I
got the entire thing and watchedend to end, every single
episode, and so maybe now I'mmore of a Trekkie than I was.
I absolutely love the series,but of course I'd seen all the
originals too.
So coming into Riverside andseeing Captain Kirk and Spock
and the original Enterprise andeverything in that town, it was
another place I could not leave.
(48:50):
I was almost stuck there.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
But for everyone else , josh, like myself, you know
who aren't really Trek fans andwhatever else.
What do you see at RiversideIowa?
Speaker 3 (49:02):
It's the future birthplace of Captain T Curry.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Oh, is this the place ?
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yes, oh, megan talked about megan, yeah and there's,
of course, a great geocache, isa statue there's a little like
like gravestone marker of theactual and I guess he was
conceived on the on the pooltable of one of the box oh,
what's the one that's the one.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
so the entire concept of Riverside came about by one
Trekkie.
He was a member of the citycouncil and he went to the other
city council members and I'vetried to picture myself in this
room when he's standing in frontof the city council and he goes
.
I have an idea for our town.
Let's make it all Star Trekthemed.
I can only imagine what theroom looked like in that moment.
(49:48):
But they rolled with it and itturned into something amazing.
But man, that must have been aconversation.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
It is a great tourism sort of hook, josh Especially.
Everyone knows a Trekkie fan ofsome degree.
So yeah, that's a massivetourism hook.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Yeah, and it is canon .
I know it's in Star trek 4where he mentions he was from
iowa, but they weren't theynever specified like what town,
so I'm sure riverside was likeit's us it's us, yeah, we're,
we're the ones this is where.
This is where he was born.
It's exactly how it happenedokay, so you've seen so many
(50:25):
amazing landscapes.
I'm sure, throughout the UnitedStates, Are there any
geological things?
You saw that you were just like, wow, this geological feature
is amazing.
That sticks out for you.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
I mean countless.
I could give you a list forhours on this.
I think the one though thatreally just jumped out at me it
was the oldest physical geocachein New Mexico, and I'm sorry if
I'm butchering the name, but Ithink it's Pajarito Springs and
it is down the canyon.
And when I say down the canyon,I mean it's down the canyon.
(51:02):
So you come up to the edge andyou just have this just amazing
view down and you're looking atthe geocache on the map from
what looks like the edge of thecliff and you're thinking this
is impossible.
How could somebody ever get downthere?
And there's a trail, so tospeak, and sure enough, you can
climb all the way down into thatcanyon.
(51:24):
And it was just, it was thegift that didn't stop giving the
entire way down, all the waydown into that canyon, and it
was just, it was the gift thatdidn't stop giving the entire
way down, all the way to thebottom.
Now, on the way up, it was darkand I didn't get any of that
view at that point.
It was terrifying.
But the way down, I would nothave traded that for anything.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
How did Aichen do on the way up, back on the way up?
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Oh, she loved to climb up Every step of the way.
On the way down, she waslooking at me like are you sure?
She's like I'm not pulling youback up, dad just saying Once I
turned around, she's like it'sthis way, let's go, come on,
we're out of here she was done.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
Was there any other geological features that you're
just like wow, that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
I don't know if I'd quite call it a geological
feature, but I'm going tobecause I want to talk on it.
In Pennsylvania they have thisthere's a couple geocaches there
, but it's called 1,000 stepsand it is first of all.
They're lying to you.
It's 1,043 steps.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
How dare they For anybody?
Speaker 2 (52:24):
out there that thinks , oh, it's only 43 extra steps.
I'll tell you, when you get tostep number 1,000, you notice
that difference right away, I'msure, but it was such an
incredible hike just going up tothe top of that thing.
And then, once you get thereand you've survived, and you get
to the top, and again it's thatamazing view where you go.
Okay, maybe it was worth it.
(52:45):
I wish those 43 steps weren'tthere, but this was something
that was worth doing.
I really enjoyed getting upthere and, um, the dog would not
hike those steps up.
She refused flat out.
She looked at me and she gaveme that, that look that I know.
So I put her in the backpackand I had her on my back the
entire way up to the top.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Wow, wow, what a good dad.
Yeah, so, nick, did youactually count the steps?
Is that how you know?
You know, you know that was1043?
.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
No, I did some research after the fact.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Oh, okay, here I'm thinking you actually counted,
mate.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
I can't count that well.
Heck, I did the tunnel of lightand you only have to count to
13 alcoves and I got to 13.
I go am.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
I at 11?
Speaker 2 (53:23):
Am I at 15?
I think it's a spot.
Let's just look.
If I couldn't keep that countto 13, I wasn't getting to 10 to
43.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
It wasn't going to happen.
So I'm going to go a littledeeper here.
So you did this youaccomplished this amazing feat.
You met people, you saw amazingplaces, you spent some quality
time with your dog.
What did you learn aboutyourself?
Was there anything that youchanged?
(53:52):
Do you have a differentperspective on life?
What are some of the deeperthings that I'm sure you're
still processing it at, you know, as you're wrapping?
Wrapping things up here?
But yeah, this is a what'd youlearn about yourself?
How did you?
Speaker 2 (54:06):
change.
I don't think my brain is fullycaught up to what I did.
I definitely learned that I amcapable of handling any
challenges thrown at me, nomatter what it was.
For instance, when I blew tires, I didn't beat myself up.
Oh no, what am I going to do?
(54:27):
Or the one, the one time I gotmy car stuck in the mud, I, I, I
problem solved and figure itout.
Um, that time you know it was,it was me, it was in the middle
of nowhere.
Um, either I figure out myproblems or I'm SOL.
So I, I go into the woods, Ifind a bunch of dead logs and
branches and one time I carrythem back and I create my own
ramp and I was able to get mycar out of the situation I was
(54:49):
in and free myself.
And that was I was.
The entirety of the journey islearning that there's nothing
that that we are not capable ofdoing If we set our minds to it
and we work toward it and we andwe don't let that, that voice
in our head that says, oh,you're going to fail.
Don't listen to that.
Tell yourself instead of, oh,it's so terrible, everything's
(55:11):
going wrong, how can I fix this?
What can I do to improve this.
What's the answer?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
What can be done.
That's some great advice there,nick, some fantastic advice.
And, like anything, stressitself If you stress over
something, you're not going tofix it.
So, like you said, just don'tstress.
Yeah, okay, this has happened.
How can I fix it?
How can we go about doing it?
So, yeah, don't stress.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
You're a great example of living life big.
I think so many people gothrough life just thinking, oh
that would they look at somebodylike you and they're like you
and they're like, oh, that wouldbe amazing to do.
I could never do that.
And they're wrong because theyhave such a small view of what
they could accomplish in theirlife and what they could do that
(55:53):
they put themselves in a box,and I want to applaud you, nick,
for not putting yourself in abox, doing something, setting a
goal, accomplishing it and justreally going for it and not
living small.
So I think what you did isamazing, but it also is just
very inspiring to whatever it is, and it doesn't have to be
(56:16):
visit every county in the UnitedStates.
For some people in our country,they've never left their state.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
So I'm really glad that you brought up that point,
because it wasn't planned thisway, but it was a recurring
theme that we saw throughout ourjourney and that I began to
talk about in certain videos,and it's it's that one, one
person with it, with an idea, adream, a goal and the drive to
do it, they can accomplishamazing things.
(56:45):
So many of the places that wewent through Freedom Rocks that
was one artist who went throughall those counties and did that
Mock Opulence, which is a veryhighly favorited geocache.
That is one person who puttogether that entire garden for
people to walk through and seeall these pieces of history of
the town, lake and Linland, allthe metal art sculptures that
you can drive through.
That was one person with adream and a goal and he was
(57:07):
opposed at every turn and hestill pushed forward and now he
created an amazing thing.
And we saw that over and overand over again throughout our
journey, as one person can makea big difference and, of course,
it's great if you have a teamand it's great if you can find
people to support you, but don'tfeel like you're not able to
accomplish anything by yourself,if you put your mind to it.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Will said Mike.
Will said Josh, we're a bit outof time, mike.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
Yeah, Nick, tell the people, tell the people.
We mentioned your YouTubechannel, but just tell the
people where they can find youand follow along on whatever's
next, whatever crazy thing youhave lined up next.
Where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (57:47):
So this may be our the end of our journey around
the United States, but it's onlythe beginning of our journey
around the world.
Now that I've I've gotten afeel for doing video series and
sharing my travels, I want tocontinue to do that and show
people the many great placesaround this world.
So we will be showing Japan wasshowing many places in Asia.
Eventually I'm going to becoming back for Alaska and
(58:07):
Hawaii, um, and we'll continuetouring around the world.
So, uh, please, please, go tothe YouTube and subscribe at mag
planner.
That's M-A-G-P-L-A-N-N-E-R, um,and that way you can stay in
tune for when our next journeycomes and we have some videos
coming your way.
I also have a website that I'veset up it's the mag plannercom,
(58:27):
and I have a lot of supportingresources because I want to make
this fully accessible forpeople so they can dig deep and
look in the details and see whathappens.
So all of the maps that I'velaid out they're all available
All of my geocache target lists,um, I've broken them down.
Each video is linked to thesetwo.
I've broken them down by Statesso you can look at how I
approached each state.
I have master lists so you canlook at the entire plan, the
(58:49):
budgets on there and every other.
Everything is accessible topeople, so I want them to be
able to kind of dig down and seethe detail work if they're
interested.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
He really is a planner, josh, and well done,
well done.
I'll link that to in the shownotes.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
Why do the planning when Nick's done it all for you
already?
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Exactly, he's the mag planner.
So there we go.
There we go, josh.
Patrons.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
We've got to mention patrons as well, if you've been
enjoying our podcast and, let'sbe honest, wow, this was a great
one.
Nick, you were such a greatguest.
Thank you If you're enjoyingthis.
We really appreciate yoursupport.
By supporting us, you help usto create even better content.
Keep it free for everyone, soconsider joining us at
patreoncom backslash treasuresof our town.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
And Josh, how else can people contact us if they
want to contact us?
Speaker 3 (59:38):
Feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our
town podcast at gmailcom, or youcan follow us on Facebook,
instagram, twitter and YouTube.
Speaker 1 (59:45):
So that's it for our show today.
Please subscribe, rate andreview on your favorite
podcasting app and, as always,Josh.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
May your travels always lead you to the most
unexpected and amazing hiddengems from around the world and
every county in the UnitedStates.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
Great job, Nick.
Thanks for being on.
Well done mate, See you nexttime.
Bye.
See you out on the trails, yeah.
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