"The Boring Town Challenge" w/ Jeff Wagg

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Jeff Wagg returns to the podcast with a special travel challenge as he explores three supposedly "boring" American towns and reveals the fascinating stories, attractions, and historical significance hidden within each location.

• Bagley, Minnesota (pop. 1,305) offers beautiful Lake Lomond with its haunting loon population, the legend of "Green Jenny," and Minnesota's longest-used prison
• Sandwich, New Hampshire (pop. 1,466) served as the filming location for "On Golden Pond" and features incredible fall foliage due to its remarkable biodiversity
• Unity, Oregon (pop. 43) wasn't officially a town until 1972 when ranchers needed a water grant, and now features rentable fire towers with 360-degree views
• All three locations demonstrate how even the smallest American towns contain unexpected treasures waiting to be discovered
• Jeff shares his own approach to finding fascinating stories in seemingly ordinary places through research and appreciation for local history
• Each town has limited geocaching opportunities (1-3 caches) likely due to small populations of active geocachers

Visit our Patreon at patreon.com/treasuresofourtown for exclusive content including Jeff's "golden nugget" advice on finding interesting aspects of any town.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And I have to start off with a question.
You're chasing 70,.
Given that you're fromAustralia, doesn't that sound
very hot to you?
Shouldn't you be chasing 21?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Do you love to travel ?
Do you love road trips?
Do you love finding hiddentreasures in towns all over the
USA?
Hi, I'm Joshua.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
And I'm Craig.
Welcome to Treasures of OurTown.
It's the podcast that exploresunique and charming towns
scattered throughout the United.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
States.
Guided by our love forlocation-based games like
geocaching, join us as weventure into some of the
country's most intriguingdestinations, uncovering hidden
gems and local secrets along theway.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
On today's episode, josh, we have a very special
returning guest from over a yearago and he has been given a
very, very special travelchallenge.
Travel challenge, josh.
It's so intriguing it really is.
And I will say this he gavehimself the travel challenge too

(01:00):
.
So it wasn't just us, it wasn'tour idea, it was actually his
idea, mate.
It was his idea, and you willhear his beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful voice and dulcet tonesvery, very soon coming up.
So, uh, yes, although, josh, ifyou click on this and listen to
the show, you've already seenwho it is by reading this is
true.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
So it is one of our favorite guests we've had on
this whole show and that is jeffwag.
We've actually had peoplecontact us and say, hey, can you
bring jeff wag back?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
exactly, so jeff has fans out there and they want to
hear him on this podcast andjeff, he has his own podcast as
well, called built to go, a vanlife podcast, and I even say it.
I said I start to say it likehim because I listen to it every
single week as well for him.
So I start to say it like himtoo.
So you to it every single weekas well for him.
So I start to say it like himtoo.
So you'll hear him say his ownVanLive podcast.
Exactly the same, josh, butanyway, jeff Wagg, he's going to

(01:52):
be on it very, very soon.
Meanwhile, before we get him on, josh, what have you been up to
, mate?
We've got to do our delays andour upgrades.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, we have to do our delays and upgrades.
Well, I just had my delay justnow as I couldn't get my
headphones to work, and thereason why is because the
headphones I've been using getthis this is travel related are
the ones that Delta Airlinesgives you to watch the movies?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Joshua.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
They're literally worth like probably three cents,
joshua Johnson.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I know.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Why.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Why.
And now you've got a reallynice set of headphones too, very
professional looking, and yousaid that they're your
headphones too that you'rewearing.
I know I should have been usingthem the whole time.
I've never seen them on you.
We've been doing this show forover two years now.
I've never seen them on you,but anyway, okay, here's my real
delay.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yes, what's your real delay?
Did you know that?

Speaker 3 (02:42):
No, there's always a day for every day.
I didn't know the record storeday.
Did you do record?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
store day.
Yeah, I don't think.
I've ever talked about this, Inaddition to geocaching and all
the things we do.
I love collecting vinyl records.
You didn't even know that.
You've learned something newabout me today, Craig.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
I knew that, josh.
I've been to your house, I'veseen all your records do not
have.
So if people don't understand aswell, joshua johnson, he sits
there in his lounge room with notelevision not one ounce of
television in his lounge room atall but a record player on a
really old school, beautiful, um, like dinette sort of area or
whatever it's called, I don'tknow what it's called like
something sits against the walland then he's got all his

(03:21):
records all lined up, all hisvinyls lined up, and you've even
got a holder for the for the uh, for the album cover that the
record that's playing on thewall too so yeah, that's right
see, oh, you have such a greatmemory.
You think I don't really youthink I don't actually go
through your whole place while Iwas there absolutely, I did so.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's really creepy.
That's really creepy.
Craig um but here it is actuallyyeah it's actually my delay
because I had to get in line toget the records I want.
So the deal with record storeday is to support local record
stores which are kind of like,well, they they've having a
re-emergence of popularity, butyes, it used to be kind of a

(03:59):
dying breed when vinyl was notcool.
But vinyl's's cool again.
Yeah, it is People, youngpeople, even young people are
collecting it, yeah, yeah.
So on record store day theyhave exclusive vinyl records
that come out just for that dayand they have limited quantities
.
Wow.
So people line up at the recordstore.
I lined up at two and a halfhours before the place opened up
, really Excited to get my.

(04:20):
I had a.
It was a certain record Iwanted and I got up there and
the store only had two copiesand guess what?
I was the third person.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
I didn't get it.
Oh no, that is definitely adelight you missed out.
It's like when you were a kid,josh, and you lined up all those
times for that brand new toyfor Christmas and your parents
went oh, they ran out beforehand, yep.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
The couch patches their dolls.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Was there any punches thrown?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Was went up.
They ran out beforehand.
So, yeah, the couch patchestheir doll.
Was there any punches thrown?
Was there any punches thrownwith?
No?
No, no, yeah, everyone's verypolite, very polite.
It was actually a lot of fun.
You don't know who you're goingto stand in line next to, and I
met some new friends.
It was.
It was actually a lot of fun,so it wasn't a really bad delay.
Craig, yes, what was what'syour delay?
This it's still.
It's still the same, it's stillmy ankle.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
It's still in.
It's still the same.
It's still my ankle.
It's still in pain.
I've still got to dress itevery single day as well.
I still get stabbing pain in myactual heel now rather than the
ankle itself.
So mind you in saying that Ican't complain too much, because
our guest today as well, he'sstill held up after his ankle

(05:23):
surgery that he has had.
We'll ask you about that very,very soon.
Meanwhile, josh, my upgrade.
I'm going to concentrate moreon the upgrade because it's much
nicer.
I'm just chilling at the momentin good old sweet home Alabama,
chasing the 70, as they say.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Josh, wait you went back south.
You went south again becauseyou were in Missouri.
Yeah, exactly I was up inKansas.
Yeah, kansas.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Missouri.
Then I came down and St Louis,et cetera, and then I came
straight down south back to agood old sweet home, alabama,
for a little bit and then I'llhead back up to St Louis in a
couple of weeks' time to pick upour good friend Rob, the
president of Munzee in St Louisto go to Uranus Josh, yeah, of
Munzee in St Louis, to go to.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Uranus, Josh.
Yeah, I've been to Uranus a fewtimes.
Who's Uranus?
Oh Uranus.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Uranus.
Yeah, yeah, I've been there afew times, so exactly I'm sure
it's coming up.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
I'm sure Jeff has been to Uranus.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Oh yeah, jeff's been everywhere, man, and we can ask
him that as well.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
So exactly your upgrade.
You didn't say you upgrade that.
You know I don't talk about myday job very much now.
You don't on this podcast,because you know I talk about my
geocaching and stuff like that.
But I'm I'm a I'm a speaker foryoung people and today I hung
out with 60 juniors and seniorsin high school and I talked
about the importance of livingyour life with purpose.
And you know a lot of people,you know they look at the youth
and they're like, oh, there'snot a lot of hope for the youth.
And let me tell you, hang outwith me for a day and you will

(06:50):
be so impressed with these youngpeople and how, uh, how amazing
they were and um and uh, it wasjust.
It was one of those days whereyou're like you wake up and like
that was a great day spent so,um, really really great day with
with about 60 juniors andseniors talking about stuff that
actually matters.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Molding the lives of future American leaders.
Joshua, good job, I'm trying,I'm trying.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, verycool, very cool.
All right, josh, should we getinto our guest?
Yeah, I'm so excited to talk toJeff Wagg.
Do you want to do theintroduction?

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Josh?
No, you should, because you'relike a super fan of his.
You listen to his podcast everyweek.
I'm fanboying.
You should do it, I'm fanboying.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
All right, no further delay.
Here is the man himself, jeffWagg from Built2Go.
Jeff, good day, mate.
How are you, buddy?

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Well, I'm well.
Well, I'm mostly well.
But thank you for having me.
I have to start off with aquestion.
You're chasing 70, given thatyou're from Australia, doesn't
that sound very hot to you?
Should he be chasing 21?

Speaker 3 (07:49):
This is true.
Oh, look at this.
He's done his research as well,although Jeff does.
He's very astute because hedoes do international travel as
well, don't you Jeff?

Speaker 1 (07:58):
I do.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
You do know the Celsius and Fahrenheit
conversions.
I know it quite well too.
It's quite easy to do in yourhead now, but I still don't do
the whole metric conversionswith the distances with miles
versus.
That's still too hard for me.
So, yeah, I don't do that.
But yeah, chasing 70 for me isyeah, it's, it's, it's the
common term here, so I use thecommon terms.
You know, Craig, Craig, you'rechasing 70.

(08:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
And you know we don't talk about the weather on this
podcast but now it's too late.
Guess what it was here inMinnesota today, where I am
right now, guess what thetemperature was 70.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
72.
It was 72.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Why are you not up here?

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Well, I wonder, you're busy molding the people,
the future Americans.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Oh, that's true, you don't have time for me so.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
I'll come down south where people have got time for
me.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
That's true.
Just for the record here, itwas not 72 in Chicago today, it
was 45.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Oh, wow, yeah, it's coming for you.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
You're going to get some warm weather.
It's coming your way.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
You need it Meanwhile .

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Jeff, what have you been up to mate?
As I said before, you've got anankle injury.
What happened?
Tell everyone about it.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
So I took a bunch of people to different parts of
Europe in November on a big, ona big wet, in a big wet van, as
I say, on a river cruise and, um, that's a lot of walking and a
lot of cobblestones.
And when I got back I foundthat I was not recovering,
basically I was losing theability to walk.
So I went in and they found atorn piece of cartilage from,

(09:25):
actually from twisting my ankleat the City Museum in Missouri,
which is a place that peopleshould pay attention to and that
cartilage had turned to bone.
So I actually had a littlepiece of bone in my ankle and
they had to go in and slice anddice and cut it out.
So I have been laid up sinceJanuary 27th and I'm just
learning how to walk again.
Oh, wow, and I have not been inmy van since January 25th at

(09:50):
4.31 pm.
Wow, and I've got a littlejonesing problem.
I'm a little, yeah.
And then I went to see my vanlast weekend and I drove all the
way from Chicago to LaSalleCounty, illinois, and because of
traffic it took two and a halfhours and I pulled up and there
was my van and it was stillthere and no one had messed with
it all winter long and it wasbeautiful.

(10:11):
And I got out and I had leftthe keys in Chicago and I
couldn't get into my van and Ithought, oh well, surely there's
a way to break into a 2011Mercedes Sprinter.
And then I was like I couldjust break the window and I'm
like what are you talking about?
You can't break the window ofyour own van and then I thought
I should go get the keys.
It was a five hour round tripand so, yeah, I drove away and I

(10:36):
left my van there and I'm goingto try again this weekend.
But, yeah, I have an issueright now.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Let's just say that and, yeah, I have an issue right
now.
Wow, let's just say that.
And there are Josh.
There are a few actuallisteners, our listeners as well
, and they went over to Jeffafter listening to him on our
podcast over 12 months ago,nancy being one of them.
Tivia, she was one of them aswell.
She listens all the time.
She's also a part-time vanlifer as well.
Oh, welcome Nancy.
Yes, yeah, and she's actuallylaid up again with a knee

(11:04):
surgery.
Oh gosh.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
And I'm very sorry to hear that you're having these
ankle issues because you know, Iknow this isn't a van life
podcast, but van life is veryadaptable and you can adapt to
things like this.
And the whole time I'm laid upwith my ankle I'm thinking you
know, if I were in my van Icould cook, I could do
everything because I'm in my van.
But when you're not set up likethat and you have an injury,
then your whole life is like youcan see it but you can't do it.
So I have a lot of sympathy foryou and your current struggles.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
I hope they end soon.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, I have adapted quitewell and, as you said,
everything is almost in arm'sreach anyway, when you live in a
van and you know whereeverything is.
I cook for myself, I cleaneverything else as well.
I've got my fridge, I've got mystove, I've got everything in
the van and most afternoons I'llget to my spot early in the
afternoons now and I'll get inmy, because I've got a swivel

(11:58):
seat and the passenger seat too.
So I'll swivel the passengerseat around and I put my foot up
, uh, and raise it, and maybesome ice as well, and every
single afternoon I do that andit seems to just relax
everything, including my ownmind as well.
So, yes, that's important,exactly, exactly so.
That's, that's the van lifestuff.
That's what's been happeningthere.
But let's get back now, jeff,to uh, to first of all your

(12:20):
built to go van life.
Apart from you being laid up,what else is happening with your
podcast?

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Well, the podcast is doing great.
I have my internationallistenership is growing quite a
bit and, to be clear, I'm notdoing any marketing, I'm just do
.
I'm a guy with a van who wantedto listen to a podcast while he
was working on his van and Icouldn't find one that was in
the style I wanted, so I justmade it, that's it, and I do it
and people listen and as long asthey listen, I'll keep doing it

(12:45):
.
And uh and so, yeah, thingshave been interesting and, um,
I've been having a problemlately because people ask me to
put in a news segment.
So I, I need a little van lifenews in there and the news is
difficult right now.
Let's just say that, and I Iwill put in bad news stories if
they're appropriate, but I don'twant them all to be bad news
stories.
So I reached out to thelisteners and said help, I need

(13:08):
you guys to find me good news.
And they did.
They did.
This week I actually was ableto put in several good news
stories, so I was reallyappreciative of that.
But right now I am so eager toget back on the road and I have
so much travel planned this year, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
And I don't even know how I'm going to fit it all in,
so we'll see.
Very good, very good.
Josh, do you want to do want totell everyone as well, all the
listeners now, what this showactually today is about, like
what jeff.
Jeff said it was jeff's idea,and then you pick the places too
.
What, what's, what's going on,josh?

Speaker 2 (13:40):
well, we, we wanted to give you guys some
opportunity to research someamazing places that you may want
to travel in the future.
So jeff reached out to us andhe goes challenge me.
Challenge me, yes.
And he's like find find whatyou believe are three of the
most boring places in the UnitedStates.

(14:03):
Just give them to me, just laythem on me, and I will tell you
why.
They're not necessarily boring,or maybe we will find out that
they actually are boring.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
I don't know, we'll see.
Well, josh, you picked thethree of them out.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
I did pick the three of them out.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
So just to let everyone know, we've got one in
Minnesota, we've got one in NewHampshire and we've got one in
Oregon.
So they're the three differentstates and we'll talk about
exactly each one very, very soon.
Should we just jump into thefirst one?
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Sure, let's jump into the first one.
The first one is in my homestate and, fun fact, I've been
there.
Fun fact I've slept overnightthere.
Okay, the one, yes.
So Bagley, minnesota.
It is in Northwestern Minnesotaand let me tell you there's not

(14:56):
a lot of up there, and thereason I went through there, in
case you're curious, is thatlong ago, when I was actually a
youth minister long ago, and wetook a bike trip from the top of
Minnesota, from Canada, all theway down to the Twin Cities
with about 20 teenagers, andBagley was one of the stops

(15:17):
where we camped overnight.
So all I know about Bagley isthere's a lake and there's a
campground.
That's all I know.
Jeff, jeff, jeff, you're goingto have to, you're going to have
to tell us more, because I itwas fine, it was fine, but yep,
there was, there was a lake andthere was a campground.
Tell us, tell us about Bagley,jeff.
Inspire us, get us excitedabout visiting Bagley.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
So, of the three places you gave me, this one is
of this Well, I'm ranking themfrom hard to easy.
This one was the medium one.
Okay, wasn't exactly easy but itwasn't that hard either.
The campground you probablystayed at was the Bagley City
Park and Campground, which is abeautiful campground right on
Lake Lomond, which was namedafter Loch Lomond in Scotland,

(16:01):
and it is well known for itsfishing.
It's also occasionally home toloons, so, which will be a theme
here in a moment.
But, yes, that alone to memakes the place interesting,
because if you've neverencountered loons, especially
while camping, it is one of themost eerie, creepy, weird things
in the world.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
They make this sound and hello, mr Editor if you
would like to put in the soundof a loon call, should I, should
I try?
Should I try?
I mean?

Speaker 1 (16:28):
I'm from minnesota, that's not bad yep kind of like
that there you go.
You don't need the sound effectanymore, we have it.
But imagine that at 4 am andechoing across the lake really
loud, and if you ever get upclose to one of these birds,
they're really weird.

(16:48):
Most birds have hollow bones sothey can fly better, but loons
don't.
They're one of the few birdsthat has a solid bone structure,
so it's incredibly hard forthem to take off and they
actually need a runway.
So if you watch a loon take off, it'll start at one end of the
lake and just kind of paddle asfast as it can until it can get
up enough speed to slowly climbinto the air like an overladen

(17:12):
747, and then it's okay.
They're very cool, very strangebirds with bright red eyes, and
to me that alone is enoughreason to visit Bagley.
But wait, there's more.
Bagley was founded in 1898, andit was named after the Duke of
Clearwater and Clearwater is thecounty and the Duke of

(17:34):
Clearwater was a man by the nameof SC Bagley and, as you might
guess, he was a timber baron,because this is the woodsy, or
formerly woodsy, part ofMinnesota.
They did cut down a lot of thetrees.
Most of them have grown backnow, and it's also the South
Dakota part of Minnesota.
So pretty much yeah it's.

(17:55):
You know I found a lot ofreferences to Sisseton in Bagley
and Sisseton is in South Dakota.
It means land of the fishscales.
That's a whole other story.
However, bagley itself isfascinating in its history
because SC Bagley, who the townwas named after, hated being
called the Duke of Clearwater.
Therefore everybody called himthat even more.

(18:16):
And do you know how a placegets its name Like?
There's a formal, actual way aplace gets its name in most
cases.
Do you know what that?

Speaker 2 (18:26):
I, I mean somebody, somebody votes on it or somebody
goes there and go.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
I declare the bagley that definitely happens at one
point.
Okay, but the name of recordthat we use today comes from the
post office, and that is whythere's a lot of confusion in
old place names, because a lotof towns had to change their
name when the post office wasmade.

(18:51):
Because you know we alreadyhave a Lincoln, illinois and
you're one of 17 of them, so whydon't we choose a name that's
unique?
And they didn't have zip codesback then, so Bagley really
didn't have that problem.
There weren't that many peopleliving there.
So in 1898, when they decidedto make it a town, they did so
and they just named it after therichest man in town, which was
fairly common.

(19:11):
However, what happened in 1898that made them want to make a
town?
And this is an answer thatapplies to many, many, many
towns in the US, and that is therailroad you got.
that is the railroad you got it,the railroad.
Wow so nowadays?
we think of interstates as beingthe thing that makes a town a

(19:35):
place.
Right.
So the interstate goes to yourtown, you're great.
And if it misses your town,well over my shoulder here I
have a route 66 sign and you cansee what happens there.
Uh, route 66 dried up becauseI-40 replaced most of it and
people just whizzed on by.
Now there's still a lot ofnostalgia there.
But Bagley was one of the luckyones.
The train went there and that'swhy, basically, there's still a

(19:57):
town there.
Now they have the longest usedprison in the state of Minnesota
in Bagley.
And it is a tourist attractionnow.
Wait, wait, say that again thelongest used Used prison, or
well, I mean jail.
Yes, it's certainly not apenitentiary, okay, it's a few
cells.
They were built in 1905 andthey were used until 1998.

(20:19):
And you can imagine whatsomething built in 1905 to hold
prisoners would be like in 1998.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
So, yeah, that's a thing you can visit and, you
know, hopefully for just a shortwhile.
Yeah, so that's a thing.
They have an awesome cabin youcan rent.
It's on Airbnb.
It's called Farm by the Lake.
It's a wooden cabin, okay,Right on the lake, with water
and water sports stuff andeverything you need, and it's

(20:48):
open 24 7, all year round so youcan do your winter sports there
, because lake lawmond you cando ice fishing, you can do
snowmobiling, cross-countryskiing, all that stuff.
So did I happen to mention thisplace is beautiful?
I mean, most of minnesota isbeautiful, but this place is
definitely.
You know, you're right on thelake with the trees and it's

(21:09):
absolutely a gorgeous place togo.
Another reason you might wantto go there is because it is on
the edge of the white earthnation reservation, which is
home to the shooting star casino.
So, hey, at one time this wasthe gambling hub of Minnesota.
Gambling's a little bit moreloose and available now, but

(21:31):
yeah, at one time that wouldhave been a reason you would
have gone to Bagley.
And there's one otherinteresting.
Well, there's two otherinteresting things.
One of them is there's a legendin Bagley and it's the legend
of Green Jenny, green Jenny,green Jenny legend in Bagley.
And it's the legend of greenJenny, green, green Jenny.
Green Jenny is the spirit of agirl who drowned in a Creek that

(21:52):
led to Lake Lomond, and now shewants company.
So she comes out of the reedsand algae and grasses and will
invite young girls to join herin the lake.
Maybe by force?

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Hmm, that's a rumor I've heard.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
And then there shall be more green jennies and gales
and abbeys and all these otherpeople.
Anyway, it is a truth that ifthere is a body of water
anywhere in the United States,there are legends or monsters.
You can have both, but thereyou have to have one or both,
but there's gotta be one or theother, and Lake Laman does not
let us down.
The other thing is this Bagleyclassroom, and this might appeal

(22:34):
to you, josh.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
They built an outdoor classroom that seats 40.
That's kind of like anamphitheater right on the lake
and they do all kinds oflectures and things out there in
the, in the wilderness.
Basically, I mean, it's in thetown but you're in trees and the
lake is right there and theidea is that you will be
educated not only by thelecturer but also by your
environment, and that's a coolthing.

(22:58):
So, with all that, this littletown population 1305, that
really isn't, you know, agrowing concern in any way.
It's certainly not Minneapolis.
It's a pretty cool place and ifI'm up there again, I will
certainly drive by and, you know, maybe throw a few dollars in
the casino.
Oh, and, by the way, I willstop after this, I promise.

(23:20):
The White Earth Nation is famousfor growing wild rice.
Oh, yes, oh, so good.
They do grow that in LakeLomond and in the Virens.
Their reservation is quitelarge.
But, yes, wild rice and ifyou're not familiar with what
wild rice is, listener, wildrice has nothing at all to do
with rice.
No, it is a substitute for rice, but it's basically the seeds

(23:42):
of a grass that's native toNorth America.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
And it's grass that grows in like marshlands.
It grows in the water and ifyou've never had chicken and
wild rice soup, it's so good.
Here in Minnesota we have wildrice burgers.
I mean, it's delicious, it isso good.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
It's definitely a Minnesota thing, but it is
really good and it's actuallybetter for you than white rice,
and the reason they call it thatis it kind of sort of looks
like rice, but it also grows inthe water, which is a rice thing
.
So that is Bagley, minnesota.
Wow, and I didn't have to digdeep for that.
That was fairly easy becauseit's a cool place.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
So this is a podcast guided by geocaching.
I'm going to have you guysguess I'm going to have you guys
guess I'm going to pull up themap for all these.
Okay, yeah, how many geocacheswould you guess are in Bagley
proper?
Not outside, but actually intown.
I'm going to say five, I'mgoing to say 15.
Okay, the answer is three.
Three, however, get this, jeff.

(24:46):
Two of them are in the city parkthat you mentioned the very
first thing, you mentioned theplace that I slept, yeah, and
then the other one is on it.
This get this.
This is cool.
So if you're looking foradventure, the other one is on
lake lamont, on an island, andit's called.
It's called lake lamont kayakisland adventure.
So that's a kayak and you go tothis island and you find a
geocache.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
You wave to the beautiful loons and, and, and
and to green jenny as she triesto flip your you have that
problem too.
I'll stay away from green, jenny, but uh, but if you're, if
you're a listener out there andyou know a little bit about
geocaching, but not as much umthe.
Probably the reason why as wellis that there's not actual a
geocacher player in that town,because in order to hide a cache

(25:30):
, you have to be in a certainvicinity in order to keep up
maintenance.
So you can't hide a cache asyou're passing through a town,
for instance, unless it's avirtual or a earth cache.
That's the only two.
So, and there are threetraditionals.
Are there, josh?
Just traditionals.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
There is one multi and two traditionals.
Oh nice, Nice.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Oh, that's worth it, then that's worth it too.
So, and if you're into theparanormal, by the sounds of it
too, because I do watch a fewparanormal stuff, youtube stuff
as well too.
So van life, van life andparanormal hand in hand for some
reason.
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
I wasn't going to mention this, but nearby to
bagley there is the hundred, thehaunted hundred acre woods, oh,
which some tiktokers have beenpresenting as a real thing.
But it's actually a halloweenattraction where you go into the
woods and stuff jumps at youand stuff.
So, uh, oh I'm sure josh canattest to this if you've been in
the minnesota woods at nightalone.

(26:24):
You really don't need anyparanormal stuff.
You can go to the Ojibwe umtraditions of the Wendigo or the
Wendigo, however you want tosay it, and stuff like that.
That's where that stuff is from.
Uh, but yeah, no, it's, it'screepy enough.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
When you're camping up there, it just you hear stuff
.
I mean you hear the bear, thebear situation.
It just it creeps, it freaks meout.
It's, it's, it's wild.
Uh, literally it's wild.
And can I say one more thingbefore we move on from?
Bagley is jeff.
I'm so glad you started withour state bird, the common loon,

(27:00):
because they are the mostfascinating birds.
They really really are.
And each you know we have10,000 lakes, which actually we
have way more than that.
Yeah, you do.
And every get this Craig, everylake, almost every lake, just
has two.
It just has two loons.
It's like their lake.
Oh really, it's fascinating Amale and a female two of them,
and that's it.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
What happens when they breed?
Where do?

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Well, the babies all show up.
Yeah, the babies show up, andthen they fly and find another
lake.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
And find another lake .
So if there's 10,000 lakes,that means there's 20,000 loons.
That's it.
There can't be any more loonsthan 20,000 loons.
Tough math there, Well here'sthe.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Thing.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
A lot of baby loons.
Don't make it, because theeagles will swoop down and they
will get the babies.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
And you know if you've ever been to an airport
there's like one plane on therunway at a time.
I think it's similar to thatwith these loons.
Because if there were severalloons on the lake.
They'd be smashing into eachother as they were trying to
take off.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
They got little landing lights and everything on
the lake their eyes.
I like it.
I like it, Jeff.
We we want to go for the hardone or do we want to go for the
easy one?

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Well, let's just go down and then maybe, when he's
done explaining it andconvincing us that it's not a
boring place, we can decide ifthat was the hard one.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
The easier or hard one the easier or hard one that
makes sense.
In that case, then we're goingto go to New Hampshire, and this
time I wanted to have.
This name was made and it's insandwich New Hampshire.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
I like the name.
I like the name.
I had to pick a name.
I'm really curious about thename.
I've not done any research onthis.
So, Jeff, that's your job.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
So, as it happens, you picked a place that's my
home.
What I mean?
I grew up in that area.
I grew up in SalemMassachusetts, but Salem
Massachusetts considers NewHampshire.
We would say New Hampshire.
So actually, craig is not faroff of the pronunciation that we
would use.
I mean, I used to have theBoston accent.
I've messed it up now but wewould call it New Hampshire or

(29:01):
we would call it Cow Hampshire,because growing up in the 70s,
that's all that was up there.
Like if you saw cows, you werelike, oh, we crossed the border
into New Hampshire, but thatsaid it was our summer
playground and I can't say theword on the podcast because I
believe you do not have anexplicit tag.
Yeah, now we don't.
But the first word is mass,relating to Massachusetts, and

(29:22):
the second word is if you take ashovel and dig in the ground
and if you put those twotogether, that's who we were
from Massachusetts coming up toNew Hampshire in the in the
summers.
So we spent a lot of time there, uh, and I did summer camp up
there and everything.
However, uh sandwich isfascinating because it has a
direct relationship to Hawaii.

(29:43):
Not only Hawaii, it has adirect relationship to a number
of islands in the deep SouthAtlantic, just North of the
Antarctic circle, and do youknow what that connection is?

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Everyone eats sandwiches.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
You are closer than you might think Really.
Wow, is it the?

Speaker 3 (30:01):
spam.
Is it the spam?
You can put spam on yoursandwich, oh really, wow, is it
the spam?
Is it the spam?

Speaker 1 (30:04):
You can put spam on your sandwich.
This is a good point, but no,it's actually far longer than
that, because when Hawaii wasquote unquote discovered by
Captain Cook, he owed a favor tothe Lord of the Admiralty in
England, and that was LordSandwich.
Yes, and this man supposedlyinvented the actual sandwich.

(30:28):
The legend is that he there wassome leftover meat and he just
wanted lunch and he asked hisbutler or someone to just bring
me a couple of pieces of breadto put that on there, and that's
where the sandwich came from,apparently.
Who knows, however?
Sandwich Mass, oh, not SandwichMass, sorry, wrong story,
that's a different story.
Put that on there and that'swhere the sandwich came from,
apparently.
Who knows, however?
Sandwich mass, oh, not sandwichmass, sorry, wrong story,
that's a different story.
Sandwich new hampshire I happento be going to sandwich mass in

(30:49):
a few months.
That's why it's in my headsandwich new hampshire um is
actually named for the samereason that the cook islands.
I'm not I hope you guys canedit this the sandwich islands,
which later became the HawaiianIslands.
Actually they were the HawaiianIslands first and then they
were renamed the SandwichIslands and then they became the
Hawaiian Islands again when wecame to our senses.

(31:10):
Named after the same personfourth Earl of Sandwich, I think
, was his official title and hewas the Lord of the Admiralty
and that's why people owed himallegiance.
Now you probably realize thatCaptain Cook did not visit New
Hampshire.
So what's going on there?
Well, they were cutting up landand giving it out willy-nilly

(31:30):
and if you've ever been to NewEngland you realize it's named
like old England.
A lot of places in New Englandhave their counterparts in
England and Sand, new hampshire,uh, was basically given to the
sandwiches the lords of thesandwich, that are all of
sandwiches and it was just big,useless piece of land and they

(31:53):
just said here's, here it is,and it's one of the biggest
parcels in new hampshire givento somebody like that.
The weird thing is, if you lookat a picture of the city and
it's it's drawing of the city,like the outline of the city on
a map.
It's shaped like a sandwich.
It's shaped like a sandwichwith like a bite taken out of it
and it's just a coincidence,but it's a little weird, yeah so

(32:18):
so there's that going for it,but actually there's a ton going
on here.
I was so excited to see thisbecause this is first off, it's
absolutely beautiful.
Nothing against Minnesota.
I love Minnesota, but newEngland is where I'm from.
It is home to me, and one ofthe things I love about new
England is it's biodiversity.
These woods in New Hampshire,when you go through this part,

(32:40):
you are surrounded not by, youknow, as in the Pacific
Northwest, you're surrounded by600 Douglas firs and a couple of
redwoods.
No, you have 300 differentspecies of trees all around you.
There's beech and hornbeam andoak and birch and elderberry and
on, and on, and on and on.
And growing up as a kid, Ilearned all these tree

(33:01):
identifications and then, as Itraveled around the country, I
was like what is up with theseforests everywhere?
There's nothing in here exceptone species.
And that's actually true.
It's how the country, thecountry's natural history,
formed.
So New England has anincredible amount of
biodiversity, especially in thisarea, because it's far enough
south not to get up into thecolder regions that kill off a

(33:24):
lot of species.
Like Vermont doesn't have quitethe biodiversity that New
Hampshire does.
That said, the big thing inSandwich that everyone goes
there for because it's a touristattraction is Squam Lake,
s-q-u-a-m Lake.
It is Squam Lake S-Q-U-A-M Lakeand if you're a movie buff you

(33:44):
have probably seen Squam Lakebecause it is where they filmed
on Golden Pond.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
It's a 1981 movie with Jane and Henry Fonda and
Dabney Coleman too.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yeah, a whole bunch of famous folks.
Weirdly, I was camping on thelake next door which is Lake
Winnipesaukee, which is thebiggest lake in that huge
tourist area.
Lake Winnipesaukee, and some ofthe people that I was camping
with went on a field trip andactually bumped into Jane Fonda
as she was filming this movie,that's how old I am.
However, squam Lake is a huge,huge tourist attraction.

(34:21):
So this place, even though itspopulation is only 1,466 people,
if you go there on, say, july4th, there's 10,000 people there
.
It's quite popular.
Now, all that said, what elsewould you go there to see?
I mean, okay, there's water,there's woods, there's camping
and stuff.
Well, it has a little bit of aninteresting history.
There have been some famouspeople from this tiny little

(34:43):
place that no one's heard of,unless you're from New England.
One of them was John Wentworth,who was the mayor of Chicago in
the late 1800s.
I've never heard of him and Ilive in Chicago, but he's
supposedly a famous person.
The more famous person isClaude Rains.
Who's Claude Rains?
Well, if you're a movie buff,you know that he was in the
movie casablanca and he is thecop who said round up the usual

(35:06):
suspects, that guy, who'ssupposed to be french, is from
sandwich, new hampshire.
Wow, it gets a little weirderthan that, though.
There's somebody else who'sthere and and do you guys know
the show?
That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
I've heard of it.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Okay, so you guys are a little younger.
All right, you're a bit youngerthan me.
That's incredible.
It was a big show that was onin the eighties and late
seventies and it was justincredible stuff.
It was a magazine style showwhere this week on that's
incredible We'll have a dolphinwho can sing baritone and, you
know, here's a man who can drinkan entire two quarts of beer in

(35:45):
one gulp.
That was actually a real thing,um, and they would just do this
stuff on the show.
And, uh, the host of that showwas a man by the name of John
Davidson, who was also the hostof the a hundred thousand dollar
pyramid, which was a big gameshow in the seventies, and he
was in Edward scissorhands ofall things.
That guy's still alive.
He's 83 years old and he boughtan old barn and sandwich and he

(36:07):
filled it up with couches and astage and he's like hey, seven
o'clock, everyone bring somefood and beer and we're going to
do stuff on the stage andcalled club sandwich.
He's been doing it for years.
You just go and you hang outwith this tv star guy.
Wow, sadly this is his lastyear.

(36:28):
He just announced he's turning83, he's old, he's sick of it.
So if you want to do that, thisis your summer you can go to
the website.
Just look up club sandwich,you'll find it wow, go to the
website and you you canactually just go and sit an old
couch and have some live.
That's incredible.
And uh, he's also a musiciantoo, but as many of these

(36:48):
musicians go, his career pointother directions, but anyway
there's that.
There's also the chapmansanctuary in visney woods,
v-i-s-n-y, visney, and that isjust a beautiful recreation area
with lots of hiking and you cando it in the winter, you can do
it in the summer.
It's famous for its birdwatching.
This is a migratory routethrough there, like much of

(37:10):
Minnesota, and it's wonderful.
Now they also have the SandwichFair, which was a fair that had
been going on since 1887.
Apparently, in 1886, somebodyhad a lot of cows and they were
like, I want to show my cows off, and some guy just like brought
all his cows out and peoplecame and looked that's a nice
cow, you got there and then thatbecame a tradition and that's

(37:32):
been going on since 1887.
So it's an actual, it's a wholefair, nothing like the
Minnesota State Fair which Iwent to and it scared me because
there were so many people,nothing like that, but a very
quaint, nice, quiet little newengland fair where there's
crafts and things, and that is areally nice thing, and that is
in october, and why that mattersis because the first week in

(37:53):
october is the peak foliageseason in new england.
Lots of places have prettyfoliage in the fall.
But remember that biodiversityI mentioned.
That's what makes New Englandthe best place on earth for fall
foliage, because there are somany different colors mixed
together.
You don't like if you go to say, utah in the fall you get these

(38:15):
big swaths of yellow becausethe aspens are turning, and if
you go to the Pacific Northwestit doesn't change because all
they really have is conifers.
But New England you get I usedto call it um.
There's this one spot inVermont I drive through and it
looked like you were drivinginto a bowl of Froot Loops, and
Squam Lake will offer you that,so you can go to the fair and

(38:36):
you can just be surrounded bycolor and it it's yeah, it by
color and it it's.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Yeah, this was the easy one.
I'm sorry I have to it'sobvious.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Now, you guys know this is the easy one, but, um,
but it it's, it's, uh, it's areally cool place and it made me
nostalgic and I thank you formaking me do that one because,
uh, lots of cool stuff there.
Oh, another, another one afamous astronomer by the name of
adelaide Adams, a femaleastronomer in the 1930s.
Her canoe tipped over in thelake and she died.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
So, but like even then, in the 1930s this was a
very popular tourist attractionplace.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
So anyway, love it and I love all of New England.
Is that haunted now as well?
I'm sure the astronomer fromthe lake I'm sure's strong like
she, comes out to the starsevery single night I do have a
haunted story about squam lakeand it's personal.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
um, you, you have probably heard of stephen king,
yeah, um, and you have maybeheard of his book and several tv
series and movies called themist.
Now, that's set in Maine,obviously, but my grandmother
used to, way way back in the day, work at these big summer
lodges.
She was a waitress and you knowshe'd live at the lodge all

(39:49):
summer and she said that one dayon Squam Lake she woke up and
they couldn't see anything.
This mist had taken overeverything.
This super thick mist, takenover everything, this super
thick mist.
And when she read StephenKing's the Mist, she knew
exactly what he was talkingabout, because that phenomenon
of that unbelievably heavy mistis actually a real New England

(40:11):
thing.
The stuff that happens in thatmist, not so much.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Very good.
Okay, craig, we need to react.
Well done, well done, jeff.
Yeah, that, um, I'm convinced.
Okay.
Now, when I look at the map, Imean it's clear, this is just a
beautiful area, oh yeah,especially for nature.
So, and craig, I'm you know youhaven't seen.
As you know, craig doesn'twatch as many movies as I do.
I love, I love a good movielocation.

(40:42):
Yeah, true, especially when youlive in a van.
You got Dan the movie on goldenpond, oh yeah, is the when you
watch it?
There's, it's the.
It's not a lot goes on, okay,but first of all it's a
masterclass in acting Henry.

(41:02):
Not a lot goes on, okay, butfirst of all it's a master class
in acting Henry Fonda.
It is his last performance andI believe he won the Oscar for
this performance.
And so all-star acting, amazingacting.
But the lake, the lake and thecat it's a character.
It's a part of the movie, it's acharacter of the movie.
You look at that and you'relike, oh my God, this place is

(41:24):
as close to heaven as you canimagine when you just look at
this beautiful area, thisbeautiful lake.
So when you said on Golden Pond, jeff, I was like, oh my, this
is heaven, this is beautiful.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
No, it's Iowa Just saying.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
To be fair, some of it was on.
They filmed some of it on LakeWinnipesaukee, but most of it
was filmed on Squam Lake,because Lake Winnipesaukee is
the true huge tourist area ofthe region and Squam Lake is
kind of its quieter cousin.
So the people who don't want togo to the world's largest
arcade, which is in um where'sbeach, which is in Laconia, next

(42:00):
to Lake Winnipesaukee, um, whojust want to actually be out in
nature and on the pond whichisn't a pond, it's pretty big
this is the place they would goand that's why they chose it to
film on Golden Pond.
So, yeah, add that to your listthere.
Josh and Craig, both of you Ihave the sense that Josh needs
to do more traveling.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, he does Well, so you can believe, I've never
been to new hampshire.
it's one of those states thathave.
I've not been yet.
I have to do a trip thenortheastern trip to that, and
here's the thing I'm gonna say.
One more thing I want to reactto.
This is like I I did look upthe uh, the club club sandwich.
I looked it up and I'm liketotally unexpected.
When you see this place on themap, you wouldn't believe that
there's.
It's like a nightclub, yeah,like there's folks.

(42:49):
It looks like a kind of a folkssinger sort of place.
So it's really cool.
Yep, um craig, do you have anyreactions to sandwich?

Speaker 3 (42:57):
absolutely and, by the sounds of it, yeah, october
is the place to, to the time tovisit.
Yes, it'll be busy, but you,I'm sure you'll be finding
places there all over the place,even when you're just driving
through the hills and thewinding roads and stuff as well,
and you see all the actualfoliage.
To me, it's all about thecolors, the colors and the
foliage.
So and yes, josh, I too, I'mmissing two states, and they are

(43:22):
Maine and New.
Hampshire.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Dude, we got to make a trip, we got to like, even if
it's just a long weekend we gotto, we got to do it.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
There's my two states .

Speaker 1 (43:30):
I'm missing, so fly into Manchester, new Hampshire,
manchester I get my accents amess Manchester, new Hampshire,
rent a car, whatever, and takeRoute 93 up.
Well, I mean, there's a bunchof ways to go.
You're going to go to Vermonttoo, because I'm demanding it,
but you want to go up Route 93into Vermont to Dartmouth, where

(43:51):
Dartmouth College is, hanover,new Hampshire, it's right on the
border.
And then you're going to takewhat's called the airline across
the entire state of Maine andyou're going to end up in Calais
or Bangor and then you can gosee Stephen King's house.
But it is, it's absolutelygorgeous.
It's a totally different partof the of the country that it
really.
I mean, we are very fortunateto live in the United States in

(44:13):
the sense that this country hasso much variety.
I mean, if you compare Miami to, you know, seattle, iattle I
mean just just the big cities,but they're so very different
and everything in between.
Anyway, lots to see and do outthere, absolutely so do we?

Speaker 2 (44:31):
we're going to do our geocache prediction, is there?
What are the?
What are the number ofgeocaches in sandwich proper?

Speaker 3 (44:40):
okay, you go first this time, Jeff, because I'm
looking at the map and it is abig area.
It's a big area but it's mostlywoods, yeah, but then again,
geocachers love woods, you see,that's the thing, and I don't
know how many people actuallylive there in terms of
geocachers live there.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
The more geocachers that live in there.
I'm going to stick with 15.
It's a nice round number.
I like it See.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
I'm going up to the 100 mark for this one.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Whoa In sandwich proper in the town I'm talking
about oh in the town, oh in thetown.
In the proper within citylimits.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yes, which does include a lot of woods, for what
it's worth I mean it's big- I'mgoing two then, if that's the
case, I'm basically 15.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yeah, well it's.
It's hard to tell where thewhere the line for the city is
if you look at sandwich, if youzoom in, so there's like north
sandwich east sandwich there'scenter sandwich.
There's a lot of sandwiches,sandwich landing, but if you
zoom in on sandwich it doesn't.
There's zero, zero geocaches wow, in the town proper yeah, there
is a little lake outside ofsandwich that has one called
little.
It's not a lake, it?
Yeah, there's a little lakeoutside of Sandwich that has one
called Little.
It's not a lake, it's a pond.
It's called Little Pond.

(45:46):
Laughing Trout Pond is the nameof the geocache.
There's one, I'm guessing.
I'll count that there's one,however, because it's just woods
, woods, woods everywhere theplace, everything outside of it.
There's hundreds of geocachesall around, in all the woods
around there, but sandwichproper, there's one One, wow.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
One in sandwich proper.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
And again, like you said, you can't just travel
around the country creatinggeocaches.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
You have to tend it and there's only 1,466 people
there.
That's right.
So the percentage of geocachescompared to muggles is quite low
.
Yeah, there's lots of muggles.
Exactly, and I love how.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Josh, I love how Jeff knows all that terminology too.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Jeff, have you actually found a geocache or two
?
How many?

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Oh yeah, no, I've found tons.
I used to do it quite a bit.
Sanibel Island, I think I foundwell, there's so many on
Sanibel, but I at least 40 ofthem, which is a large number.
It's dozens of them, and nowthey're all gone.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
The hurricane that whole island is completely
different now, and I found oneon my property in vermont um.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
We had six acres up in richmond vermont and there
was a guardrail.
It was it's very hilly and itwas at the top of the hill and
in the guardrail I found ageocache that I didn't put there
.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
It's pretty common.
That's a pretty common place tohide.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
And there's another one near my other property too
Normally sometimes, and I'm nota fan of this as well, but when
people attach them to fencelines as well, I'm not a fan of
the fence line hides becausethat is the person's property,
so I'm not a fan of that.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah, I was okay with it.
You know, like I don't wantpeople traipsing through my
property all the time, no, no,but where this was?
I allowed it, but I never foundthe owner.
I never figured out who it was.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
All right.
Now, Josh, we're going to go tothe hard one.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Most difficult.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
Most difficult.
And that did Jeff.
That did sound quite easy foryou.
You had a lot of information toit.
We're now going across toOregon, and in Oregon would you
class it as a unity in Oregon?

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Unity Unity.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Oregon.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
I have to ask you why you picked Unity Oregon.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
I like the name.
I wanted to pick one out in theWest, I wanted to pick one in
the middle, I wanted to pickEast.
So I love Oregon, I just loveOregon in general.
And yeah, I did do kind of aGoogle search of like boring
cities and Unity did actuallycome up.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
That's how you get to Oregon, right, because there's
boring Oregon, which is home tothe Sasquatch Research Center,
so it's anything but boring.
Yeah, so I, boring oregon,which is home to the sasquatch
research center, so it'sanything but boring.
Yeah, so I I didn't pick boringor a goal that would have been
for that reason, yeah, it wastoo easy, too easy.
So, uh, unity is an interestingplace because they all are, and
I, after we're done, I willexplain how all places are
interesting and how you can findthe interest.

(48:37):
But, um, unity was settled byranchers.
Um, people have been people.
We have this issue here wherepeople somehow, throughout
american history, only meanseuropean immigrants.
People have lived here forthousands of years, but the
european immigrants startedsettling in the area in the
1850s.
In fact, there's a sod house insome guy's backyard that dates

(49:00):
back to like 1848 and if youyou're not familiar with sod
houses, they're just what theysound like.
It's a house made out of sodwith a roof.
It's got a wooden roof, but theside it's built out of sod
because that's all they had tobuild out of.
If you've seen the movie Danceswith Wolves, there's a
prominent sod house in thefeatures in the story.

(49:21):
But there's one of those inUnity and it's not an historical
mark or anything, it's just theguy's backyard.
He uses it as a storage shedand that sets the tone for Unity
.
Unity has a really weird historyin that even though they got a
post office in 1891, they didn'thave a town.
Got a post office in 1891, theydidn't have a town, nobody

(49:45):
actually bothered to makeborders or say this is the town
or come up with this plat oranything.
Yeah, nobody really cared, theywere just getting along their
business.
But then they cared and it wasfor a specific reason and it was
a 1972.
That's when unity Oregon becamea, an official place, not just

(50:05):
unincorporated, and the reasonis they needed their water main
fixed and they couldn't get agrant unless they were in
official place.
So the 75 people who livedthere went through the process
of creating a town council andgetting a mayor and becoming a
town and thus unity Oregon wasborn and they got their grant

(50:28):
and they put in the water andeverybody quit their jobs the
police force, which was like oneold guy on a Harley or
something.
He resigned and then the countyhad to take over, like it
always had, and I've never heardthat story before.
A town of convenience, a towncreated just to get public money
.
But that's what happened inUnity.

(50:49):
But that doesn't mean the towndoesn't have an identity.
People have lived there for along time and this was a
difficult place to findinformation on because they
don't have the history that mosttowns have, in that it's not
written down.
Most towns have an historian orsomebody.
There's usually a museum inthese little towns.
There's one in Sandwich,there's one in the county near

(51:12):
Bagley and there's one in thecounty near.
Where are we Unity?
Yes, I forgot where we were.
That's how I am In Unity aswell, but there just wasn't
anything written down becausethere was no official anything.
No one was even recording whoseland was whose.
It was like when the shotguncomes out, you know you're off,
you're landed on somebody else'sland, ranching community.

(51:34):
But also, what broughteverybody there?
Why they were there is becausethere was a massive sawmill,
because they were cutting downall the trees, similar to
Minnesota.
Now, if you look at pictures ofthe air of the region now, unity
has no trees except wherepeople planted them.
So there's this downtown withtrees and then there's no trees

(51:56):
anywhere around it.
Now, a lot of people whohaven't spent a lot of time in
Oregon think of Oregon asgigantic trees or they think of
Cannon Beach with the big rocksin the water.
This is the Idaho part ofOregon.
This is Western Oregon,completely different from
Eastern Oregon.
You've got the Cascades that godown the middle and they

(52:17):
separate the state completelyand utterly.
Different landscape, differentgeology, different politics,
different everything.
And unity is on the Idaho side.
The people who live there arevery proud of their heritage.
I, the way I researched unitywas different than I did the
rest.
I went on YouTube.
Okay, I went on YouTube andtyped in unity Oregon, partially

(52:40):
because YouTube search engineis easier to use now than Google
, because Google wants to addcontext to every single thing
you type.
And so I type in Unity Oregonand it's bringing up restaurants
in Chicago.
I don't want that, I want some.
You know they're always tryingto.
Oh, he must.
He lives in Chicago, he mustwant Chicago.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
No, why would he want to know about Unity?
That's right.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
It's a boring town?
Yeah, anyway, so it is not,though there's a lot of
interesting stuff going on here.
First off, some of that stuffwas time-based.
In 2017, a really interesting,significant thing happened in
Unity.
It happened in a lot of places,but it was pretty cool in unity
.
Any idea what that was 2017?

(53:26):
2017, oh 2017 in unity and manyother places, but starting in
unity and then going somewhereelse, oh wow, you have me
stumped for just a few minutesoh oh, the eclipse.
Yes, unity is right on the pathof the totality.
Oh, very cool, yeah, and beingso rural, it was an amazing

(53:50):
place to see it.
I've watched the photos thatpeople took and the way it's
situated.
You can see mountains in thedistance and then there's big
flat fields in front and birdwatchers were there and they
knew that the totality was goingto be there and they watched
the birds just freak out.
I don't know where you guys werefor this, I craig, I don't even
think you were in the country.
No, I was in australia, but, um, if you got a chance to see, it

(54:12):
was amazing because everythingturned to night and the animals
were like what?
And all the birds that sing inthe night started singing in
unity.
You know?
And and for a lot of people whoare the lifers you know they're
doing the life lists for alltheir birds they got to see
birds.
They couldn't see any other waybecause these birds come out at
night so it's difficult to seethem, but this was an occasion

(54:34):
where it was only night forthree minutes, so the birds came
out and there's the bird rightdown on my list, I mean, you
know.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
You know what?
I wonder if it sounded likethis it did not.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
I believe it was a warbler of some sort.
You guys have a kinship withthe birders, because they're
just doing geocaches that flyaround.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
This is true.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
If you ever see the movie the Big Year, I love that
movie I've watched that movie.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
I'm'm like these are geocachers that are.
They're finding birds that aregreat like movie.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Yeah, it's great.
Same concept, absolutely.
Also.
There's some other cool stuffto see there.
I'm a big fan of the video gamefirewatch.
If you have never played that,firewatch is.
I've played it several timesnow.
There's just something aboutthe vibe, but the story of the
game it's.
It's a walking simulator, ifyou're familiar with that term,
but the story is that you're aguy who's had some rough times

(55:30):
in life and you're just gonna godo a job at a fire tower for a
few months and sort your shitout.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
I said shit sort your stuff out.
That's right.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Fixture in it there and then, um, and then stuff
happens and and you spend allyour time in this fire tower,
and so I'm really that thataesthetic of the fire tower and
the solitude and yet being ableto see the whole world, seeing
just how alone you are becauseyou can see everywhere and
there's nobody there that thatwhole vibe is present in Unity

(56:03):
because they have one of thosefire towers and it's huge.
They've got this gigantic, tallfire tower.
It was built in the 1930s bythe CCC and it's next to a
ranger station called, notsurprisingly, the Unity Ranger
Station and it's in thisCascadian rustic style which is
a particular kind ofarchitecture.
Timberline Lodge, if you'veever been there on Mount Hood in

(56:25):
Government Camp Oregon, wherethe shining exteriors were
filmed for the movie, is alsothis style.
It's a little different.
They borrow some arts andcrafts stuff, but it doesn't
matter, it's similar, it's aregional style that's well worth
seeing and the ranger station'sopen and you can go inside and
visit and you can stay overnightthere.

(56:46):
Huh, so you can stay overnightin this old ranger station, but
I was not able to get clearinformation as to whether they'd
let you stay in the fire toweror not, because there are fire
watch towers in the country thatyou can rent, and that's a cool
thing.
They also have a really coolGrange Hall there rent, and
that's a cool thing.
They also have a really coolGrange Hall there.
It's a.
It's a very big building.
It's probably the biggestbuilding in town and it has this

(57:06):
unusual round roof that is.
I'd never seen a roof like this.
In Chicago.
We have a lot of buildings withround roofs, like an airplane
hangar.
This is different.
The curve it describes is notuniform.
The curve it describes is notuniform.
The math of the curve wouldrequire some pretty advanced
calculus to do, and yet theychose that as an architectural

(57:30):
style for this building, andwhat I'm trying to say here is
that Unity is a great place forphotographers.
There's lots of reallyinteresting things that you can
see there.
Now a couple other quick things.
It has some weird names.
There are two rivers that meetin the town, which is probably
the real reason people were everthere.

(57:52):
It's because there's water.
That's always, you know, if yougo back far enough in time,
there's water in a place ExceptBirmingham, alabama.
That's a whole other story, butit is Birmingham's got a weird
history in that.
However, we're not talking.
The rivers are named BurntRiver, burnt River and Jobe

(58:12):
River.
Now, burnt River is a fairlylarge river in the region.
It goes through a lot ofdifferent towns and no one's
really sure why it's called that.
One theory is that the rocks onthe side of the river look
burnt, because this is a verygeologically complex part of the
country.
There's lots of volcanicactivity and yet also lots of

(58:33):
sedimentary rocks, so it's likea salad of geology.
So have I have seen these rocks?
When I went to plush, oregon,on the road to plush, I saw
these rocks and they do.
They look like they're burntrocks, so that could be it.
The other idea is that, well,this is forest country and
whoever named it got there rightafter a forest fire, and so it
was the river flowing throughthe burnt forest.

(58:55):
We don't know, because nobodywas there to write stuff down
and they just didn't even careenough to have a town, nevermind
write down stuff like that Jobriver.
Uh, nobody knows.
But why would you name a riverJob?
I mean, there's the riverJordan in Salt Lake City.
That's not too hard to figureout.
But Job and I'm thinkingsomeone had some really tough

(59:18):
times, yes, getting there orliving there, and then they
wanted to preserve their faith.
So they looked to Job, the mosttested man in the Bible.
This is true, and I don't evenI'm not a big Bible person
myself, I'm not a religiousperson, but I know Joe pretty
well.
Yeah and uh, that's the onlyreason I can think of they would
have.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Yeah, Joe got sick.
His kids all died.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
I think his wife, wife, wives died Uh yeah, I
think at the end, just beforethe end, he's sitting on a dung
heap covered with sores.
I think that was the denouementof the story before.
Well, you'll have to read itfor yourself.
But yeah, and that's all I canfigure.
So currently the area it'salmost classified a ghost town.

(01:00:04):
It's not quite because peoplestill live there, but if you
look on some lists of ghosttowns in Oregon it will come up
occasionally, not entirelyaccurate.
It's also still a touristattraction.
People go there for amazinghunting and fishing.
So this little town of oh, Ileft out the best part.
Okay, why is it called Unity?
Why?
Because the ranchers did notget along with each other.

(01:00:27):
That's not an uncommon thingamong ranchers, you know, their
fences are always falling downand their stock is crossing
lines.
But they needed a post officeand they got together and they
were anticipating oh, we'regoing to fight over it.
It's got to be the Wilson postoffice, because my ranch is the
biggest and Wilson's have livedhere for 30 years.
Well, no, I think McCracken'shave the claim to that.

(01:00:48):
After all, we have the bestproperty.
Whatever the argument was, theyall got down and some old woman
in town who was there just torecord the minutes of the
meeting or something, said youshould just call it unity,
because for once you've all cometogether.
Oh, and they were like yep, theend Boom unity is born.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Wow, I declare thee unity.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
The end Boom, unity is born.
Wow, I declare the unity.
Exactly right, that was prettymuch how it came.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Yeah, in that accent.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Yeah, Pretty practical ranchers.
You know they were just like wegot a name.
Everyone agrees, All right, seeya, you know time to go.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Meeting's over.
Exactly, I want to get back tomy farm, my ranch.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Josh, what are you thinking?
What's your takeaways from that?
Well, you know the one thing hereally, really struck me when
he was describing Unity it has apopulation of 43 people, and
you know what he said they'reproud of Unity.
Oh yeah, they're proud of theirtown.
And you know what?
That's a damn rare thing thesedays.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Yeah, see, jeff, he's still going on with this.
He said this when you were onlast time as well.
He's still every episode.
He's got to get this in.
Yeah Well, it's true.
I mean, I've lived all over thecountry.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
I mean, I live in Chicago.
I like Chicago, I have a lot ofgood things to say about
Chicago, but I'm not proud ofliving in Chicago.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
I and I really felt privilegedto live there and I grew up in
Salem, massachusetts, which is,you know, tons and tons of
history, and I am thankful thatI got to have that experience.

(01:02:18):
But it's different than pride.
I don't know.
Pride is a tough word for me.
Yeah, yeah exactly, josh.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
How about we do this as well, because I'm looking at
the time.
How about we can?
No, you, you know, not at all,jeff, not at all.
How about, josh?
Though we we can end thisrecording now, and then we're
going to ask jeff a goldennugget for our patrons about
what to look for in a boringtown.
What do you think josh do?

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
you like that just?

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
for patients, just for our patrons yeah yeah, can I
say?

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
one more thing about unity.
Of course you just moved on howmany catches done, I wasn't.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Oh yeah, oh yeah oh, you weren't gonna say that, yes,
yes yes, no guess I'm sayingzero.
I'm saying zero in unity thatis incorrect.
There is one no, that's howmany there's one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
It's right on the lake.
Right on the lake.
It is within the town, townlimits.
Uh, it is called just just aminute, I've got to pull it up
again it is called in Unity.
There's one right on the river,just outside of town, but it is
called the View of the Dam.
So there must be a dam.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Yeah, and they right, they dammed up the Jobe Creek.
They dug it out to make a JobeRiver.
Actually, a bunch of Chinamen,as they called them back then,
came in and dug out the river tomake it deeper and then they
dammed that up and that's wherethe reservoir is.
So, um, but yes, that makesthat's.
That's right.
I've seen pictures of it.
That makes perfect sense,that's yeah that's where the

(01:03:41):
cash would be.
There you go, and so here'sanother thing I learned through
this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
I hope, listeners, that you you're learning some
things.
I just learned a travel thing,craig and jeff and this whole
idea.
I I kind of got into this wholefire tower thing because I was
like I want to, I want to seewhat oh yeah, me too totally.
I mean, we got them here inminnesota, I mean fire towers.
I know, I know about fire towers.
That's not what.

(01:04:05):
That's not what I realized.
The thing that's amazing I gotonto the fire towers and what
pulled up is all these Airbnbfire towers that you can sleep
in these things, and it's likethe picture, like it's imagine
waking up in a fire tower,overlooking whatever you're
looking at, and 360 degree views.
Yes, of forest In the sky, Imean yeah.

(01:04:27):
So that's something I mightneed to seek out is a fire tower
, Airbnb or overnight location.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
One note on that, though, and the van lifers will
know about this the outhouse isat the bottom, yeah, so that
morning when you wake up, you'regoing to be going down 80
stairs and then coming back up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
Yeah, and we know van lifers, because you know a lot
of them break their ankles andthey can't handle it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
We also have ways to compensate for things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
I'll just leave that right there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Exactly, we have bottles, we have bottles
Gatorade's a wonderful productIn and out, in and out.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
That's a different episode, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
Very good, very good, very good.
Jeff, before we start to windup, how can people see you?
Where can they hear you?
What's happening at the momentwith you, mate?

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Well, if you want to listen to a podcast of me
speaking very quickly about 8million topics a week, you can
find that at Built to Go, a vanlive podcast on all of your
favorite podcast feeds.
Most people listen on Spotify,but you know it's everywhere.
I don't care where you listenand that's every week I will be
there and it's at builttogocom.
If you need to actually go to aURL, that's two.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
Ts not one, Two Ts not three, not one, thank you.
That's correct, thank you, Itold you I listen see, yes, you
do.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
You know, Craig, we might need to get Jeff to do
like a new voiceover intro forour podcast because he's got
that down, he does.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
It sounds good.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
It sounds way better than I love to travel Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
I will say one more thing, jeff as well.
And this is so, jeff, you knowour intro music, josh, and our
outro music and all that sort ofthing as well.
I did that through, obviously,with the music, gods and stuff
as well.
Jeff has actually got his sonto do his.
Oh, that's cool.
And, jeff, I'm telling you now,I started listening from the
very first episode.
You did I miss Sermouge,sermouge, sermouge, wow.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
So, sermouge, I have two children, both of whom are
adults now and both of whom aremusicians.
Fisher Wagg is my older son.
He has released a few albums.
You can find him on Bandcampand things like that, and he's
actually still performing in theBurlington Vermont area.
He's got a new band calledwe're here to Kill.

(01:06:51):
There's a name um but simonsimon um, simon wag, that's more
of an electronic musician andhe did all the music for built
to go and you can actually see Ithink you can go to simonwagcom
and see what he's up to.
He got his degree in, uh, videogame, sound design, wow and uh,
you can find stuff there buthis big thing.

(01:07:12):
If you like the music that's onbuilt to go, you can find a lot
more of it if you look at lookup sir moosh because you don't
call him sir moosh anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
And I thought to myself that's because he's
gotten older now and he'soutgrown the sir moosh.
He picked that when he waseight I remember because um as a
as a christmas.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
This my kids back around 2004,.
I gave them all each their ownwebsite and custom domain name.
I told them pick whatever youwanted, and that's what he
picked Sermougecom.
Sermouge.
I like it.
I like it.
I don't know what it means.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
But okay, well, next time you talk to him, tell him
that one of your avid listenersmisses Samoosh on your podcast,
and you've got to bring backSamoosh.
Not just Simon Wagg, you've gotto bring back Samoosh as well.
So, absolutely, thank you somuch for being on the show, jeff
.
We do really appreciate you,mate and, as I said, you have
been a very highly requestedreturn guest as well.

(01:08:08):
We very much appreciate yourknowledge, your skills and your
travel ability as well.
Meanwhile, josh, we're going torecord after this.
Now for the patrons.
We've got two new patrons,though before we go on, I've got
to say we do.
We do David Levine and DTCharlie Chari, dt Charlie.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Chari.
It looks like Chari, unless youforgot the L, but it says DT
Chari.
But either way thank you somuch for the two new patrons as
well.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
And if so, Josh, if people want to maybe get this
golden nugget that Jeff's goingto release to the patrons, only
how can they do it?

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Well, if you've been enjoying our podcast, we really
would appreciate your support.
By supporting us, you help uscreate better content.
Keep it free for everyone nocommercials.
We don't have any sponsorsbecause we don't need them.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
Same with Built to Go .
Built to Go is the same.
They don't have any sponsors.
Love that, I do, it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
It's great, I love that.
So please consider joining usat patreoncom backslash
treasures of our town.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
And Josh, how can people contact us if they want
to contact us directly?

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our
town podcast at gmailcom, or youcan follow us on Facebook,
instagram, x and YouTube.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
So that's it for our show today.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite
podcasting app and, as always,Josh may your travels always
lead you to the most unexpectedand amazing boring towns in the
United States and beyond.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
See you next time.
Jeff, jeff, thank you so much,mate.
Thank you, I appreciate you,appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
I'm just going to stop it now before he keeps
going.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Stop it now.