May 14, 2022 • 37 mins
Ben Maller continues on his travels, this time through Virginia and North Carolina! Fried chicken wars, Biscuits and Porn, Nagshead love, peeing in the dark, a wet wedding and a TSA nightmare! Plus, Danny G. throws a line in Bass Lake, fishing for 50 G's!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kaboom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes a
week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of
the Old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He treats
crackheads in the ghetto Cutter the same as the rich
pill poppers in the penthouse. The Clearinghouse of Hot takes
break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben
(00:24):
Maller starts right now in the air everywhere, and a
very good Saturday to you. Another fresh edition of The
Fifth Hour with Ben Maller and Danny Gee back in
the podcast do Joe all weekend long. And this is
(00:47):
Danny a special edition of the podcast because it is
part two of our Mallard Travelog mini series, as we
take a look back at the Big Globe Old Tour
around the United States from last week. And so we
left off I had left Chicago, right, Danny, we were
(01:08):
leaving Chicago. I believe that was the point we left
off at. Yeah, you had another good food experience right
before you left, a couple of good restaurants. Visit my
family and my my cousin who lives in Chicago. And
so Part two, The Whirlwinds Circus, the Trip Heard around
the World actually not heard around the world, but at
(01:29):
least on the podcast. And uh, this part of the miniseries,
we transition to the airport. Back to the airport because
I had to get out of Chicago and head to Virginia.
I mean violence that you were reading about, you know,
I did not. I saw a lot of shady guys
that look like they could be up to no good,
(01:50):
but I did not actually witness any kind of actual violence.
I saw a very high police presence that I heard
that that that was not really the case that much
in that part of Chicago, but there were there were
a lot of police on guard because, as I understand it,
there were actually some problems that happened in that area
(02:12):
where we were staying in the weeks prior, so they
made sure to have a lot of police there to
make make that a little safer for the out of
towners like us. But I didn't. I didn't witness any
violence or anything like that. And I didn't really feel
threatened at any point in Chicago. And I'm going to
decapitate a goat. It's a good city, and you know
it's it's nice when you don't need your glock on vacation. Yeah, yeah,
(02:35):
you try to try to keep that on the down low.
So destination North Carolina. But to get to the Outer Banks,
we had to go to Virginia and got to a
hare two hours early for the flight, rental car return,
gave over my family gold all of that gone. Yeah,
I guess I got some money here. The flight to
(02:57):
Virginia is only one hour and thirty four minutes, but
you get to the airport two hours early, and then
with the time change, the flight was delayed, and by
the time we we got our bags in the rental car,
it was almost sunset in in Chicago. But I did
have a great radio geek moment that you can appreciate, Danny,
(03:21):
when I got to Virginia from from Chicago. So we
get into the rental car in Norfolk, turn on the radio,
and whoever had been in the car before us was
listening to w t a R Sports Radio nineties six
point five on the FM dial, which happens to be
(03:42):
the Fox Sports radio affiliate. Yeah, and so I heard
Steve de Sager's voice booming out doing one of his
signature twenty minute updates with Harmon and Smith. But it
was cool. I actually text Harmon, I said Hey, I
hear you on the car radio. That was pretty neat.
There's no question that is cool, because two weekends ago
(04:06):
I mentioned that we pick your brain about any podcasts
that you may have listened to or local radio that
you might have heard. Yeah, so I heard our affiliate
that the rental car had on the station which you
always loved. You love to see that. If you're a
fan of Fox Sports Radio, wherever you are, whatever the
affiliate is, when you turn the car in, just turn
(04:29):
it on that station. The rental cars everywhere, that's right,
we dominate the overpriced rental cars. We headed to Virginia
Beach on the way to North Carolina. Figured well, we're
in Virginia, we have a few hours. We don't have
to get to North Carolina until late in the night,
and so why not why don't we enjoy the Atlantic
(04:50):
and famous Virginia Beach. It's it's always odd to me
and you probably have the same experienced any growing up
in California, and I've always flocked to the beach to
see the sun set over the ocean. But when you
go to the East Coast, it doesn't set over the ocean.
The sunset, as we all know, it sets in the
(05:11):
west smoke. So we were hanging out and the weather
was not particularly great in Virginia Beach, but it reminded
me more of like kind of like a poor man's
Venice Beach. Then I love you like a lot of
bums in Virginia Beach, some shady looking guys walking around.
(05:32):
It is a great military town though we had a
free air show. We were walking up and down the
beach there, and there's so so many military people in
that area. Uh, that's like a hub of military activity.
And so it reminded me of when I was a
kid and I was growing up near the El Toro
Marine Base in Orange County, which no longer exists, in
the Tustan Marine Base which no longer exists, And when
(05:53):
I was a little kid, every morning and afternoon there
would be planes doing helicopters doing exercises. So that was
just kind of what I grew up with. And I
hadn't seen that in a long time, so it was
it was neat. They were like military fighter jets flying
over the ocean doing exercises right in front of us.
It was pretty cool. So then we decided to go
(06:15):
on a fried chicken eating tour, all right, I want
my chicken around Norfolk Hampton's in Virginia Beach. And we
spent about five hours altogether in Virginia, maybe a little
more than that, and sampled three different fried chicken places, Danny,
three of them in five hours. Yeah. I saw all
(06:38):
the listeners tweeting you with their recommendations. Yeah, I did
ask for places to eat at and got to take
Chesapeake Babe Bridge Tunnel, a modern engineering marvel. Uh. That
thing has been around since the nineteen sixties. And so
we were driving to get food, but we crossed over
and under the open waters where the Chesapeake Bay meets
(07:01):
the Atlantic Ocean. And I don't know if you've ever
seen this thing, Danny, it is crazy. It cuts off
like almost a hundred miles if you're driving from Wilmington, Delaware,
to Virginia Beach and anything beyond Delaware. But it reminded
me a little bit like the Lincoln Tunnel in New York,
if you've been in that, but bigger, longer. He's long
(07:25):
everywhere all that. And and then I found out after
we had gone in the tunnel, listener pointed out that
it's very unsafe when there's high winds that trucks have
been blown off the Chesapeake Babe Bridge Tunnel and people
have died in their truck from from that, and that
(07:46):
freaked me out a little bit. But we first stop,
we went to Bobo's Fine Chicken Restaurant. I never heard
of Bobo's Fine Chicken Restaurant, Danny, but it's a it's
a local establishment in the Virginia Beach. It was pretty good.
It wasn't the greatest. It was pretty good. But then
we were like, wait a minute. Much like in Wisconsin
(08:09):
when I had gone to Culver's, I wanted to eat
a Culver's a lot because I heard good things about it.
I heard a ton of good things about Zaxby's and
bow Jangles. Yeah. I've heard about Zaxby's for years. Yeah,
so people are like, hey, you gotta go to Zaxby's
and Jangles. Surprisingly, I was actually more of a fan
of bow Jangles than I was of Zaxby's. I did
(08:31):
not see that on the horizon when I showed up.
And I'm happy to report, Danny, after doing a thorough
taste test of these establishments, the king of the chicken
finger continues to be raising kings. Wow. They did not
lose their status is a number one king of the
Chicken Finger Hill. Why did you like Bojangles better? I
(08:55):
just thought the chicken tasted better. They gave you bigger
portions of food, and uh, I just thought it was
a better meal. Uh man Zaxtually, it wasn't bad. I
wouldn't like pass up Zaxby's, but I just I felt
like Keynes is a lot better and and bo Jangles
was a little bit closer to the Keynes. So so
(09:16):
then about eleven o'clock at night, we stopped, stopped eating,
We hit Walmart for supplies why not, and then headed
the Nag's Head, North Carolina. Now this is my first
time driving in the South. I had not spent a
lot of time in the South over the years, and so,
just like in the movies Pitch Black, Danny Country, empty Roads.
(09:41):
The thing that annoyed me was the speed limit fluctuated
from twenty five miles an hour to like sixty miles
an hour, but every couple of miles it would go
from higher to lower, and it was really annoying. That's
(10:01):
weird that I don't know, but I'm used to driving
in California. We drive around here at night. It's like
the auto bonn yeah, yeah, and and but I was like,
I don't want to get pulled over. I made it
through Wisconsin and Chicago not getting pulled over. I'm not
gonna get pulled over in North Carolina. Now one of
the positives. I was battling a little bit of a
(10:23):
bladder infection, t am I and I had to go
to the bathroom quite a bit during this period of
the trip. A little too much information. But the great
thing about driving on a country road in the middle
of nowhere, and when you need to take a pit
you just you pull over and the whole landscape is
your toilet. Yeah, and you don't have to worry. But
(10:44):
there's nobody on the roads. Nobody beats the whiz and
uh so I did stop a few times. We rolled
into the airbnb at this at this location, Danny, we
were sharing the house with my sister in law, my
brother in law, uh, some cousins and a bunch of
little kids. Their kids and whatnot were there. We showed
(11:07):
about one in the morning, just enough time to pass
out and uh and get ready. But I've never been
to Nack said, I never even heard of Nack said,
had you ever heard of Nag's Head. Yeah, I've never
heard it. I'm not from the East Coast, and so
it was cool. It's a really neat little beach town.
(11:27):
If I lived in that part of the country, I
was in Maryland and Virginia or somewhere within reasonable driving distance,
I would go there. Again. It's weird. Surrounded by the
Atlantic on one side and there's a sound on the other,
so it's this little stretch of land surrounded by water.
There's a lot of like thirsty restaurants with funny names.
(11:48):
I tweeted out. I think I put it on Facebook.
There was a restaurant my wife wanted to go to
called Biscuits and Porn. The name of the restaurant Biscuits
and Porn. And I was very disappointed, Danny when I
went in there and I didn't see any porn. I
saw a lot of biscuits, I didn't see any porn.
(12:09):
It's very disappointing. Across the street from there was a
crab place called dirty Dicks maybe you can suck on It,
which I thought was also a fun name. There's a
gourmet roasted nut shop called Try My Nuts Nuts that
also applied to the bathroom. Yeah, try my nuts. We
(12:36):
went to this place called Bob's Grill. Their slogan is
eat and get the hell out, which is a good slogan.
Awful Arthur's Beach Shop, there's a whalebone place, all kinds
of these weird little gift shops and whatnot. It sounds
like a fun area. Yeah, it's it's cool. You take
the family for the way they were. There were three
or four miniature golf and gold cart locate on this
(13:00):
one main drag in Nag's Head, and it's like three cities.
There's Kittie Hawk, Killed, Devil Hills, and Nag's Head. They're
all side by side. And although the beaches of Nag's
Head were a ghost town compared to what I am
used to in California. The Atlantic is a inferior ocean
(13:21):
to the Pacific. Would you agree on that day that
I don't want to piss anybody off on the East Coast,
but in my experience, I would have to agree with you. Yeah,
the Pacific is just a better experience at the ocean
for for many many reasons. But the people in South
very kind of great hospitality. I did not have time
(13:43):
to do a meet and greet, but I drove all
over in my short stay in Nag's Head, drove all
over the outer banks. I love visiting Kitty Hawk, and
I wish it was one of those things. I wish
my dad was still around because he would have been
really impressed by that. Could have could have told him
sis because the Right Brothers, that's where they mostly the
first flight took place, and they had a Right brothers. More.
(14:05):
I didn't go to it because we didn't have a
lot of time. We're only be there twenty minutes. It
wasn't cost effective, But what a brilliant move by the
Right brothers to pick that patch of land surrounded by water,
tremendous high winds pretty much all day and all night
if you're trying to get a plane off the ground.
I can't think of a better place to go than
(14:27):
Kittie Hawk. Just brilliant, just absolutely brilliant. H Then there's
this place called kill Devil Hills, which I did not
see a single hill or mountain. I don't know why
it's called kill Devil Hills, but it is. And there
are all kinds of other weird little stores like they
have North Carolina has these odd liquor laws where you
(14:49):
can only buy hard liquor at these ABC liquor stores,
which is the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, and
they run the whole thing. So now there was one
big food error, Danny, that took place. The big food
error was by my wife. She made a rookie mistake.
(15:11):
Bad job by her. We went to a diner for
breakfast with the family and she ordered a breakfast burrito.
Oh bad, move right. I pity the fool. It doesn't
give me my burrito. I tried to warn her. So listen,
you're in the South, you stay away from Mexican food.
(15:33):
You're on the East Coast, and that thing was nasty.
And that's their their spin on the breakfast burrito. But
I don't even fix some Mexican dish, right, isn't the
breakfast burrito from California? I think so somebody trying to
recreate it there on the Atlantic. It doesn't sound like
a good formula. Now it was bad. It was bad, bad, bad,
(15:57):
And I'm not a big burrito guy in the morning,
but I looked at it as that's pretty bad. You
shouldn't have done that. I tried to tell her. She said,
I I don't worry how you she said. Her words were,
you can't really mess up a breakfast burrito. You want
to bet on that she send it backward and she
(16:17):
powered through. No, No, she did not send it back
but she didn't know she didn't need it. She just
like left it sitting there. You didn't need it. I'm
not gonna eat it. But I, on the other hand,
I got the hotcakes, corn beef, hash and biscuits, so
I should have gotten grits. I made a mistake there,
but it was pretty good. So then we had the
(16:39):
wedding on Saturday night. It was a fun time my
sister in law. I got married to a kind gentleman
from Ohio, and we went to a big meet and
greet party on that Friday night. It's always awkward, Danny
at these social things. I'm an introvert, and then people
find out what I do for a living, and then
they want to, uh be a chatterboxer, and so it's
(17:04):
it's a long comfort. It sounds like you would love
to talk. Yeah, like I do it for a living.
I'm good. Uh here we talk. Download the podcast check
that out. But I bet the new relatives. I guess
their relatives. I don't know how this all works. But
the father of the gentleman who married into the family
(17:27):
is an Ohio State trooper in Columbus Murder. He's about
to retire, so he told me his whole story. He's
got an interesting life. And then I met there's a
stepfather who's a prison warden in Cleveland who the mom
clearly loves law enforcement and married married first state trooper
(17:48):
and then later a prison warden. So law enforcement groupie
and this one. Let me tell you, this wedding barely
got in because it was an outdoor wedding and the
weather had actually been pretty good at Nack's Head. But
about an hour before the wedding there were ominous dark
storm clouds on the horizon and it started lightly missing
(18:13):
near the middle part of the wedding. And then after
the wedding ended, we were all running for cover as
it started pouring rain, and we ran in. Everyone's all
addressed to the nines, dolled up, and all we ran
into this open bar. They had a reception and pretty
solid finger foods. I judge weddings based on the finger foods.
They had a chicken and waffle finger food. H these
(18:36):
little roast beef, like many slighter things that weren't bad.
And overall it was a good time. And the wedding
ended around ten o'clock. The cool thing about being at
the on the East Coast, I said this on the
radio show, is on the on the on the on
the West coast, versus of these becasse on the West Coast.
If you get to ald wedding and it ends at
(18:57):
ten o'clock, by the time you come back, pretty much
everything's done sports wise. I can't watch anything East coast
ten o'clock. You got West Coast baseball games. There was
a UFC card. I'm not a big UFC guy, but
my brother in law loves the UFC, so I may
or may not have dialed up a Russian website and
(19:17):
found a UFC feed. I might, I don't know, Maybe
I didn't do that, Maybe I was imagining that. Um
but that's how that went. So And then Sunday real
quick because tons of time. But on Sunday it was
a getaway day. Got up early, the whole thing packed up,
had to drive to Virginia. Tossed the stuff in the
rentals in the suitcase, and and we're on our way.
(19:39):
We stopped by Bruthrew, which is this chain around that
part of North Carolina, and got some T shirts. And
it's like this drive through mini mart where they sell booze,
but mostly they just sell T shirts and sod. And
so we were driving back to Norfolk, and on our
(20:00):
way we stopped one more time to bow Jangles for
one more delicious meal at bow Jangles. That yeah, exactly.
And so then we got to the airport. This is
a normal travel day. We get to the airport Norfolk
and we we check in, we get get the boarding passes.
We had taken some luggage with all our clothes, packed
(20:21):
that up, sent that into security. We headed to T
s A. At this point in the story, Danny, we
have a record scratch moment. Are you ready for the
record scratch moment? So I show up, like everyone, you
pull your I d out your boarding pass, they give
you the evil eye the T s A and you
(20:42):
go on your way. So I show up, I hand
my driver's license, my boarding pass, and I then prepared
to go through the metal detector. I look back and
my wife, the family there, they were not with me.
I said, what the hell, what do you come on?
They were not being allowed through security, and I was like,
(21:04):
what's the problem. My wife then says, hey, he's with me,
pointing at me right. So next thing I know, I'm
now being escorted away from the metal detector. Now I've
already handed over my driver's license, I've handed over my
boarding past, all of my belongings are in a suitcase,
(21:24):
and everything else is on the table to go through
the metal detector. I have no idea what's going on?
This is good Fellas. What do you mean funny? Funny? How?
How am I funny? Exactly? I have no wallet, Danny,
I have no phone, I have no shoes, I have nothing.
I'm absolutely naked right now. I am at the mercy
(21:47):
of Big Brother. And we are told by one of
the people at t s A that our traveling party
was red flagged for advanced screening. And and my wife
was totally freaked out at this because one of the
t s A agents when we got to the station
in Virginia said, we were waiting for you. We knew
(22:07):
you were coming, we just didn't know when. What do
do do? Do? Do Do? Do? Do? Do? Yes? Very threatening
overnight radio guy. Yeah, that it is because of your
big ratings. Man, Clearly this isn't not the number one
station anymore, is it. So the T s A Ah
(22:29):
just like listen you you're blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah. You have to go through an intense, intensive
screening and then you'll be on your way. Like what
the hell does that mean? So we had to go
one by one through the metal detector. They then took
us to the back room. You never want to go
(22:50):
to the back room at the T s A at
the airport, but here we were. So they go through
all our belongings with like a metal thing looking for
explosive devices, like I'm packing some kind of weapon or
something like that. Uh, they pat us down. I hadn't
been touched like that by someone other than my wife
(23:12):
in many many years. Uh. And uh even the bare
feet and all this stuff they did somebody take photos
of you guys earlier on the trip at the fireworks store.
Exactly right. They it's like metal wand thing they were
testing our hands for in feet and all this stuff
is next level h bull crap. Yeah, I was, I
(23:33):
was like, what did I do? I was like, I
didn't do anything. I drove around Wisconsin and eight cheese
kurds and throw around Virginia and eight chicken. What's the problem?
Chicken and biscuits? But full pat down the whole thing.
And I am happy to report though, Danny, we did
pass all the tests, since you know, we're not actually
terrorists and all that anyway, Uh, but it was still
(23:56):
a waiting game. At this point. We had no explanation,
There was no reasoning. The people in Virginia claimed they
didn't know why we were flagged. Keep in mind, we
flew from California to Chicago, no problems. Who from Chicago
to Virginia no problems, But it was the last leg
of the flight that we had had problems. Now, eventually
(24:19):
they did allow us to take our ship back and
we were able to make the flight. We had a
stop over in Dallas. By the way, I had a
Dalist celebrity sighting in Dallas dating. I ran into a
cop hating NBA broadcaster. The person who was talked about
a police escort. Yes, Mark Jones, dope from ESPN was
(24:44):
walking around there, and uh, he must be very uncomfortable.
There are a lot of police in the airport. I
don't know how he was able to pull that off,
but the woke NBA broadcaster was parading around the American
Airlines terminal in Dallas. But and then the other thing
that happened in das m wife almost missed the connecting
flight back to California because she decided to order a pizza.
(25:06):
Mm hm oh, I said, what are you doing ordering
your pizza? I can, I don't need the pizza. Pizza,
but the pizza takes a while to cook, daddy, and so,
needless to say, it was a long, a long wait
and uh, but she did make it on the flight
and that we got back and went peace and had
(25:28):
a late night, last last meal before back to work.
And what better way is to end a trip. We
didn't go to Raising Kings. They were closed, so in
and out. That's what a hamburger is all about. Cut that, mate.
That was the full circle conclusion of the trip. Yeah,
so yeah, good time. I had a fun time. And
(25:51):
I don't think I'll be going anywhere exotic the rest
of the year, but you never know, you never know
what's gonna pop up. But I don't like to take
a lot of time off. As you know, Danny and
so pretty much used most of it right here until
the end of the year. So I think we're good.
Yeah you are, Mr bank the hours. I gotta bank
those ours. Come on U. Now, did you listen to
(26:14):
any good local radio You didn't talk about that affiliate
that you heard. Did you guys listen in to any
of the local flavors of any of the states you
drove through. Yeah, we listened a little bit, but it
was mostly we were talking while we were driving. My
wife loves to talk, and I do, like that's one
spot I don't mind talking when I'm driving. When I'm like,
I can, I can shoot the crapoler there on the plane.
(26:36):
Right back. I listened our friend Alf the Alien Opiner,
who recommended to were a bunch of Gilbert Godfrey podcast.
Gilbert passed away recently and I was a big fan
of his, and so he recommended a couple of episodes.
There was one with Penn Galette, one with Bob Costas,
and so I listened to that and that was kind
(26:57):
of cool. Um, and then uh, just a lot of
Like I said, the Virginia sports radio thing was cool
here in the affiliate, and I will admit driving around
at night, I was scanning the dial trying to find
find the no show that was in for me, Like
maybe I could hear the what the station sounds like
driving around here? And uh, And I was told by
(27:18):
somebody that Nags had got hit by a big hurricane
as opposed to a small hurricane a few years ago.
It was pretty pretty messed up. But they cleaned up.
They cleaned up pretty nice. There it was. It was
cool and uh, with a little time, I've bow guarded
the entire weekend. Dan, It's a bad job by me. No,
I mean, you have lived an exciting couple of weeks here. Well,
(27:42):
it was. It was interesting, it was different, it was
out of the norm. It was I don't know, I'm
sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff. I just I'm trying
to think what else I could could add on to
this that I'm probably gonna regret down the line, saying, well,
what else happened? Because I went to an alligator They
have alligators in North Caroline. You know that. I didn't
know that. Yeah, there's an ali gator farm in Nag's Head. Well,
(28:06):
it's actually down the street from Nag's Head. I'm still
stuck on you guys, getting flagged like you were part
of the mob. Ah, yeah, don't get me sorry, And
I felt bad and then I was like I was
getting upset. But then right after us, this very large gentleman,
uh with no he was in a wheelchair, this black
(28:28):
guy in a wheelchair with no legs. He got pulled
into the back room. Like what the hell did that
guy do? He's I mean, he's not gonna run away
from I mean, what are you doing? You know? And
I was like, well it was ridiculous. I'm sure they
have their reasoning behind it, but questioning your wife, did
you get to use the famous good Fellows line, don't
(28:49):
look at me, pal, I gotta live with her? That
isn't I should have used that line, But no, I
mean it was just like the whole thing. And then
there was a theory going around. Maybe it's because there
was Mother's Day and they were on high alert or
something like that. I don't know, but the whole thing
was was ridunculous, ridonculus. Anything going on in your world,
(29:11):
Danny here, any any weird things take place here? And
it all that stands out not weird. But I did
get to go visit my pops while you were away,
so I went to Bath's Lake. Oh cool, it was
time for that annual fishing derby. Yeah, and of course
for the second year in a row. It was still
(29:36):
nice being out there on the lake. And the following
day got to take the Tinderoni and her kids to
visit Yosemite for the first time ever. They got to
see the great National Park of Yosemite here in California
in a way they could not believe their eyes when
we got to Yosemite Falls and we hiked to the
lower falls, took pictures right there, but the bottom on
(30:00):
the falls, they absolutely were blown away. Because when we
were first driving into Yosemite, they're like, this is overhyped,
just windy roads. But once you get into the actual park,
it's like, holy sh it, look at all of this.
Every which way you look there is a crazy big
waterfall and half dome and everything else around you. But
(30:24):
the drive in is pretty long, so it's underwhelming. Once
we are inside the park, they got it. They're like, Okay,
this is better than the hype once you're inside. So yeah,
it was a nice time in Yosemite. Uh. And of
course a long drive back after that, because you basically
have to backtrack your way out of Yosemite and through
(30:46):
beautiful Fresno, California. Yeah, no, I've not. I don't think
i've been to you. I've been to the Sequoia is
Is that that's different though, right, that's different. Yeah, that's
through Vicel you the Sequoias do run up towards Yosemite.
But yeah, you take the forty one through Bass Lake
and into Yosemite. My dad is basically twenty five minutes
(31:10):
right outside of the park entrance. Okay, So, and and
how's your pops doing everything? Good with that? And he's
doing good. He's in his first year of retirement. Yeah,
so he's trying to figure out how to maneuver things
and do add ons to his house and all that
without his regular paycheck coming in. Oh yeah, that is
a problem. What kind of work did yours? He co
(31:33):
owned a construction business all these years, so he can
probably do a lot of that stuff on his own.
That's what his wife's been leaning on to. My step
mom do that and do this, and he's like, hey,
slow down, I'm retired. Yeah yeah, well with the cost
of everything though, it's you that's the way to do
it and save some bucks on that though, you can yourself. Yeah,
(31:54):
he just redid their deck and so now I think
he wants to take a couple of months off before
the next big projects. See that's the move, Danny g
You know you're you found the queen Tinderoni now and
have him add on like you could get a fixer upper. Yeah,
and then have him do a lot of the dirty
work for you and boom, you got a dream house.
(32:16):
When he asked, Hey, what do you guys want as
your wedding gift? Like, well, Pops, why don't you bring
your toolbox with you? Pops, I'd like an extra bedroom
and bathroom. That's what I would like in a deck.
Can you make that happen? Pops? Can you? Can you
put that down? Now? Is your Is your dad excited
about retirement or is he kind of like, oh, man,
(32:37):
I don't I'm I'm gonna be bored out of my mind,
Like because there's there's all kinds of Some people love retirement,
the idea of retirement. Other people always have to be
busy and can't can't grasp what that means. Yeah, I
don't think he's into it yet because the last couple
of years he actually was supposed to have retired three
(32:57):
years ago. He stayed on a couple of extra years
because the business was doing so well. It was like
my step mom having to tear him away from it.
He's not feeling it yet. I think he's He's like Lebron,
he still had two good years left in him. She
got want me to turn my brain off because I'm
gonna have a huge basketby IQO. Yeah, well you you
(33:19):
would like to leave a year too soon than a
year too late, right, that's the beligic route. Yeah, the
Patriot way, yes, would be be the way to approach that. Well,
that's cool. So he got some quality time with the family, huh. Yeah,
it was nice to see him. My older brother met
us there for the fishing derby, so it was good
(33:39):
to see some some family there in the in the forest.
Now you're white. Was your wife she was there or
you're soon to be wife? Now? Yeah, she came. And
it's funny you were talking about your Chicago trip and
where you guys stayed in about hotels, Well, we stayed
in a chalet by the lake, and the word they
always used is rustic. Where they filmed the uh, the
(34:06):
legendary John Candy movie The Great Outdoors. That movie. Yeah movie.
It's great to be right there on the lake, but
it's all made out of wood, and there's some cobwebs
here and there, and it's a little dusty. I'll be
nice by saying she's a hotel snob, so she had
to get used to the rustic life a bunch of
(34:28):
city slickers coming in there when the weekend was over. Though,
she admitted that she really really liked it. It reminded her,
she said, of camping, but more of like glamping, like
you know, upscale camping, if you will. She had a
good time, and it was really nice seeing all those waterfalls.
And we got to rent bikes and ride them to
(34:48):
Mirror Lake inside Yosemite. Now those like regular bikes were
those like electric bikes, No regular bikes. So when when
it was uphill you there was some muffing and puffing
going on, you were feeling in it. It was so
good though, because once the Mirror Lake excursion was over,
then you could go downhill most of the way. Oh well,
that's that is good. And although that is also scary
(35:11):
if you have to stop all of a sudden you're
going downhill, I don't believe in momentum sports, but if
you're on a bike going downhill, there is actually momentum. Yeah.
And it wasn't the brakes on the handlebars. These are
just cruisers. So it was the old pedal backwards for
the break. Oh man, that's not no bayne on that no. No.
(35:32):
Lots of people on that trail too. It was a
lot of maneuvering in and out of people hiking the
other direction. Wow. And what kind of food options did
you have up There's not a lot to eat, right,
You have to bring your own food in? Is that
kind of no? You got Doucey's by the lake where
we stayed the chalets. They have two restaurants attached. They
(35:53):
had weddings going on while we were there. And this
Deucey's has a fancy place downstairs and more casual burger
place upstairs. There was a long wait downstairs. We went
upstairs and had the burgers and the and the fries
and hung out. And the last day before we left,
my dad and brother came there and we all had
(36:13):
a big meal there. And so I think by the
time we left, my girl had eaten at Doocey's four times,
there weren't a lot of options. There's like one Mexican
restaurant in town, yeah, that she and my step mom
drove to. Yeah. But other than that, it was a
(36:33):
lot of you know, really good bar food. I would say, yeah,
which I'm not opposed to, but you do want a
little variety is the spice of life. As somebody said
that all we gotta get out of here. We got
the mail bag on Sunday. Mail Mail Mail, keep those
letters coming in if you obviously can't get it in
for the Sunday mail bag, but for next week. Real
(36:55):
fifth Hour at gmail dot com, Real fifth Hour at
gmail dot com. There's a a light up ahead that says,
all right, we will do that. Have a wonderful rest
of your Saturday. Saturday Saturday, we'll talk to you with
the mail bag on Sunday. Asta pasta Popolician
Kaboom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes a
week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of
the Old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He treats
crackheads in the ghetto Cutter the same as the rich
pill poppers in the penthouse. The Clearinghouse of Hot takes
break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben
(00:24):
Maller starts right now in the air everywhere, and a
very good Saturday to you. Another fresh edition of The
Fifth Hour with Ben Maller and Danny Gee back in
the podcast do Joe all weekend long. And this is
(00:47):
Danny a special edition of the podcast because it is
part two of our Mallard Travelog mini series, as we
take a look back at the Big Globe Old Tour
around the United States from last week. And so we
left off I had left Chicago, right, Danny, we were
(01:08):
leaving Chicago. I believe that was the point we left
off at. Yeah, you had another good food experience right
before you left, a couple of good restaurants. Visit my
family and my my cousin who lives in Chicago. And
so Part two, The Whirlwinds Circus, the Trip Heard around
the World actually not heard around the world, but at
(01:29):
least on the podcast. And uh, this part of the miniseries,
we transition to the airport. Back to the airport because
I had to get out of Chicago and head to Virginia.
I mean violence that you were reading about, you know,
I did not. I saw a lot of shady guys
that look like they could be up to no good,
(01:50):
but I did not actually witness any kind of actual violence.
I saw a very high police presence that I heard
that that that was not really the case that much
in that part of Chicago, but there were there were
a lot of police on guard because, as I understand it,
there were actually some problems that happened in that area
(02:12):
where we were staying in the weeks prior, so they
made sure to have a lot of police there to
make make that a little safer for the out of
towners like us. But I didn't. I didn't witness any
violence or anything like that. And I didn't really feel
threatened at any point in Chicago. And I'm going to
decapitate a goat. It's a good city, and you know
it's it's nice when you don't need your glock on vacation. Yeah, yeah,
(02:35):
you try to try to keep that on the down low.
So destination North Carolina. But to get to the Outer Banks,
we had to go to Virginia and got to a
hare two hours early for the flight, rental car return,
gave over my family gold all of that gone. Yeah,
I guess I got some money here. The flight to
(02:57):
Virginia is only one hour and thirty four minutes, but
you get to the airport two hours early, and then
with the time change, the flight was delayed, and by
the time we we got our bags in the rental car,
it was almost sunset in in Chicago. But I did
have a great radio geek moment that you can appreciate, Danny,
(03:21):
when I got to Virginia from from Chicago. So we
get into the rental car in Norfolk, turn on the radio,
and whoever had been in the car before us was
listening to w t a R Sports Radio nineties six
point five on the FM dial, which happens to be
(03:42):
the Fox Sports radio affiliate. Yeah, and so I heard
Steve de Sager's voice booming out doing one of his
signature twenty minute updates with Harmon and Smith. But it
was cool. I actually text Harmon, I said Hey, I
hear you on the car radio. That was pretty neat.
There's no question that is cool, because two weekends ago
(04:06):
I mentioned that we pick your brain about any podcasts
that you may have listened to or local radio that
you might have heard. Yeah, so I heard our affiliate
that the rental car had on the station which you
always loved. You love to see that. If you're a
fan of Fox Sports Radio, wherever you are, whatever the
affiliate is, when you turn the car in, just turn
(04:29):
it on that station. The rental cars everywhere, that's right,
we dominate the overpriced rental cars. We headed to Virginia
Beach on the way to North Carolina. Figured well, we're
in Virginia, we have a few hours. We don't have
to get to North Carolina until late in the night,
and so why not why don't we enjoy the Atlantic
(04:50):
and famous Virginia Beach. It's it's always odd to me
and you probably have the same experienced any growing up
in California, and I've always flocked to the beach to
see the sun set over the ocean. But when you
go to the East Coast, it doesn't set over the ocean.
The sunset, as we all know, it sets in the
(05:11):
west smoke. So we were hanging out and the weather
was not particularly great in Virginia Beach, but it reminded
me more of like kind of like a poor man's
Venice Beach. Then I love you like a lot of
bums in Virginia Beach, some shady looking guys walking around.
(05:32):
It is a great military town though we had a
free air show. We were walking up and down the
beach there, and there's so so many military people in
that area. Uh, that's like a hub of military activity.
And so it reminded me of when I was a
kid and I was growing up near the El Toro
Marine Base in Orange County, which no longer exists, in
the Tustan Marine Base which no longer exists, And when
(05:53):
I was a little kid, every morning and afternoon there
would be planes doing helicopters doing exercises. So that was
just kind of what I grew up with. And I
hadn't seen that in a long time, so it was
it was neat. They were like military fighter jets flying
over the ocean doing exercises right in front of us.
It was pretty cool. So then we decided to go
(06:15):
on a fried chicken eating tour, all right, I want
my chicken around Norfolk Hampton's in Virginia Beach. And we
spent about five hours altogether in Virginia, maybe a little
more than that, and sampled three different fried chicken places, Danny,
three of them in five hours. Yeah. I saw all
(06:38):
the listeners tweeting you with their recommendations. Yeah, I did
ask for places to eat at and got to take
Chesapeake Babe Bridge Tunnel, a modern engineering marvel. Uh. That
thing has been around since the nineteen sixties. And so
we were driving to get food, but we crossed over
and under the open waters where the Chesapeake Bay meets
(07:01):
the Atlantic Ocean. And I don't know if you've ever
seen this thing, Danny, it is crazy. It cuts off
like almost a hundred miles if you're driving from Wilmington, Delaware,
to Virginia Beach and anything beyond Delaware. But it reminded
me a little bit like the Lincoln Tunnel in New York,
if you've been in that, but bigger, longer. He's long
(07:25):
everywhere all that. And and then I found out after
we had gone in the tunnel, listener pointed out that
it's very unsafe when there's high winds that trucks have
been blown off the Chesapeake Babe Bridge Tunnel and people
have died in their truck from from that, and that
(07:46):
freaked me out a little bit. But we first stop,
we went to Bobo's Fine Chicken Restaurant. I never heard
of Bobo's Fine Chicken Restaurant, Danny, but it's a it's
a local establishment in the Virginia Beach. It was pretty good.
It wasn't the greatest. It was pretty good. But then
we were like, wait a minute. Much like in Wisconsin
(08:09):
when I had gone to Culver's, I wanted to eat
a Culver's a lot because I heard good things about it.
I heard a ton of good things about Zaxby's and
bow Jangles. Yeah. I've heard about Zaxby's for years. Yeah,
so people are like, hey, you gotta go to Zaxby's
and Jangles. Surprisingly, I was actually more of a fan
of bow Jangles than I was of Zaxby's. I did
(08:31):
not see that on the horizon when I showed up.
And I'm happy to report, Danny, after doing a thorough
taste test of these establishments, the king of the chicken
finger continues to be raising kings. Wow. They did not
lose their status is a number one king of the
Chicken Finger Hill. Why did you like Bojangles better? I
(08:55):
just thought the chicken tasted better. They gave you bigger
portions of food, and uh, I just thought it was
a better meal. Uh man Zaxtually, it wasn't bad. I
wouldn't like pass up Zaxby's, but I just I felt
like Keynes is a lot better and and bo Jangles
was a little bit closer to the Keynes. So so
(09:16):
then about eleven o'clock at night, we stopped, stopped eating,
We hit Walmart for supplies why not, and then headed
the Nag's Head, North Carolina. Now this is my first
time driving in the South. I had not spent a
lot of time in the South over the years, and so,
just like in the movies Pitch Black, Danny Country, empty Roads.
(09:41):
The thing that annoyed me was the speed limit fluctuated
from twenty five miles an hour to like sixty miles
an hour, but every couple of miles it would go
from higher to lower, and it was really annoying. That's
(10:01):
weird that I don't know, but I'm used to driving
in California. We drive around here at night. It's like
the auto bonn yeah, yeah, and and but I was like,
I don't want to get pulled over. I made it
through Wisconsin and Chicago not getting pulled over. I'm not
gonna get pulled over in North Carolina. Now one of
the positives. I was battling a little bit of a
(10:23):
bladder infection, t am I and I had to go
to the bathroom quite a bit during this period of
the trip. A little too much information. But the great
thing about driving on a country road in the middle
of nowhere, and when you need to take a pit
you just you pull over and the whole landscape is
your toilet. Yeah, and you don't have to worry. But
(10:44):
there's nobody on the roads. Nobody beats the whiz and
uh so I did stop a few times. We rolled
into the airbnb at this at this location, Danny, we
were sharing the house with my sister in law, my
brother in law, uh, some cousins and a bunch of
little kids. Their kids and whatnot were there. We showed
(11:07):
about one in the morning, just enough time to pass
out and uh and get ready. But I've never been
to Nack said, I never even heard of Nack said,
had you ever heard of Nag's Head. Yeah, I've never
heard it. I'm not from the East Coast, and so
it was cool. It's a really neat little beach town.
(11:27):
If I lived in that part of the country, I
was in Maryland and Virginia or somewhere within reasonable driving distance,
I would go there. Again. It's weird. Surrounded by the
Atlantic on one side and there's a sound on the other,
so it's this little stretch of land surrounded by water.
There's a lot of like thirsty restaurants with funny names.
(11:48):
I tweeted out. I think I put it on Facebook.
There was a restaurant my wife wanted to go to
called Biscuits and Porn. The name of the restaurant Biscuits
and Porn. And I was very disappointed, Danny when I
went in there and I didn't see any porn. I
saw a lot of biscuits, I didn't see any porn.
(12:09):
It's very disappointing. Across the street from there was a
crab place called dirty Dicks maybe you can suck on It,
which I thought was also a fun name. There's a
gourmet roasted nut shop called Try My Nuts Nuts that
also applied to the bathroom. Yeah, try my nuts. We
(12:36):
went to this place called Bob's Grill. Their slogan is
eat and get the hell out, which is a good slogan.
Awful Arthur's Beach Shop, there's a whalebone place, all kinds
of these weird little gift shops and whatnot. It sounds
like a fun area. Yeah, it's it's cool. You take
the family for the way they were. There were three
or four miniature golf and gold cart locate on this
(13:00):
one main drag in Nag's Head, and it's like three cities.
There's Kittie Hawk, Killed, Devil Hills, and Nag's Head. They're
all side by side. And although the beaches of Nag's
Head were a ghost town compared to what I am
used to in California. The Atlantic is a inferior ocean
(13:21):
to the Pacific. Would you agree on that day that
I don't want to piss anybody off on the East Coast,
but in my experience, I would have to agree with you. Yeah,
the Pacific is just a better experience at the ocean
for for many many reasons. But the people in South
very kind of great hospitality. I did not have time
(13:43):
to do a meet and greet, but I drove all
over in my short stay in Nag's Head, drove all
over the outer banks. I love visiting Kitty Hawk, and
I wish it was one of those things. I wish
my dad was still around because he would have been
really impressed by that. Could have could have told him
sis because the Right Brothers, that's where they mostly the
first flight took place, and they had a Right brothers. More.
(14:05):
I didn't go to it because we didn't have a
lot of time. We're only be there twenty minutes. It
wasn't cost effective, But what a brilliant move by the
Right brothers to pick that patch of land surrounded by water,
tremendous high winds pretty much all day and all night
if you're trying to get a plane off the ground.
I can't think of a better place to go than
(14:27):
Kittie Hawk. Just brilliant, just absolutely brilliant. H Then there's
this place called kill Devil Hills, which I did not
see a single hill or mountain. I don't know why
it's called kill Devil Hills, but it is. And there
are all kinds of other weird little stores like they
have North Carolina has these odd liquor laws where you
(14:49):
can only buy hard liquor at these ABC liquor stores,
which is the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, and
they run the whole thing. So now there was one
big food error, Danny, that took place. The big food
error was by my wife. She made a rookie mistake.
(15:11):
Bad job by her. We went to a diner for
breakfast with the family and she ordered a breakfast burrito.
Oh bad, move right. I pity the fool. It doesn't
give me my burrito. I tried to warn her. So listen,
you're in the South, you stay away from Mexican food.
(15:33):
You're on the East Coast, and that thing was nasty.
And that's their their spin on the breakfast burrito. But
I don't even fix some Mexican dish, right, isn't the
breakfast burrito from California? I think so somebody trying to
recreate it there on the Atlantic. It doesn't sound like
a good formula. Now it was bad. It was bad, bad, bad,
(15:57):
And I'm not a big burrito guy in the morning,
but I looked at it as that's pretty bad. You
shouldn't have done that. I tried to tell her. She said,
I I don't worry how you she said. Her words were,
you can't really mess up a breakfast burrito. You want
to bet on that she send it backward and she
(16:17):
powered through. No, No, she did not send it back
but she didn't know she didn't need it. She just
like left it sitting there. You didn't need it. I'm
not gonna eat it. But I, on the other hand,
I got the hotcakes, corn beef, hash and biscuits, so
I should have gotten grits. I made a mistake there,
but it was pretty good. So then we had the
(16:39):
wedding on Saturday night. It was a fun time my
sister in law. I got married to a kind gentleman
from Ohio, and we went to a big meet and
greet party on that Friday night. It's always awkward, Danny
at these social things. I'm an introvert, and then people
find out what I do for a living, and then
they want to, uh be a chatterboxer, and so it's
(17:04):
it's a long comfort. It sounds like you would love
to talk. Yeah, like I do it for a living.
I'm good. Uh here we talk. Download the podcast check
that out. But I bet the new relatives. I guess
their relatives. I don't know how this all works. But
the father of the gentleman who married into the family
(17:27):
is an Ohio State trooper in Columbus Murder. He's about
to retire, so he told me his whole story. He's
got an interesting life. And then I met there's a
stepfather who's a prison warden in Cleveland who the mom
clearly loves law enforcement and married married first state trooper
(17:48):
and then later a prison warden. So law enforcement groupie
and this one. Let me tell you, this wedding barely
got in because it was an outdoor wedding and the
weather had actually been pretty good at Nack's Head. But
about an hour before the wedding there were ominous dark
storm clouds on the horizon and it started lightly missing
(18:13):
near the middle part of the wedding. And then after
the wedding ended, we were all running for cover as
it started pouring rain, and we ran in. Everyone's all
addressed to the nines, dolled up, and all we ran
into this open bar. They had a reception and pretty
solid finger foods. I judge weddings based on the finger foods.
They had a chicken and waffle finger food. H these
(18:36):
little roast beef, like many slighter things that weren't bad.
And overall it was a good time. And the wedding
ended around ten o'clock. The cool thing about being at
the on the East Coast, I said this on the
radio show, is on the on the on the on
the West coast, versus of these becasse on the West Coast.
If you get to ald wedding and it ends at
(18:57):
ten o'clock, by the time you come back, pretty much
everything's done sports wise. I can't watch anything East coast
ten o'clock. You got West Coast baseball games. There was
a UFC card. I'm not a big UFC guy, but
my brother in law loves the UFC, so I may
or may not have dialed up a Russian website and
(19:17):
found a UFC feed. I might, I don't know, Maybe
I didn't do that, Maybe I was imagining that. Um
but that's how that went. So And then Sunday real
quick because tons of time. But on Sunday it was
a getaway day. Got up early, the whole thing packed up,
had to drive to Virginia. Tossed the stuff in the
rentals in the suitcase, and and we're on our way.
(19:39):
We stopped by Bruthrew, which is this chain around that
part of North Carolina, and got some T shirts. And
it's like this drive through mini mart where they sell booze,
but mostly they just sell T shirts and sod. And
so we were driving back to Norfolk, and on our
(20:00):
way we stopped one more time to bow Jangles for
one more delicious meal at bow Jangles. That yeah, exactly.
And so then we got to the airport. This is
a normal travel day. We get to the airport Norfolk
and we we check in, we get get the boarding passes.
We had taken some luggage with all our clothes, packed
(20:21):
that up, sent that into security. We headed to T
s A. At this point in the story, Danny, we
have a record scratch moment. Are you ready for the
record scratch moment? So I show up, like everyone, you
pull your I d out your boarding pass, they give
you the evil eye the T s A and you
(20:42):
go on your way. So I show up, I hand
my driver's license, my boarding pass, and I then prepared
to go through the metal detector. I look back and
my wife, the family there, they were not with me.
I said, what the hell, what do you come on?
They were not being allowed through security, and I was like,
(21:04):
what's the problem. My wife then says, hey, he's with me,
pointing at me right. So next thing I know, I'm
now being escorted away from the metal detector. Now I've
already handed over my driver's license, I've handed over my
boarding past, all of my belongings are in a suitcase,
(21:24):
and everything else is on the table to go through
the metal detector. I have no idea what's going on?
This is good Fellas. What do you mean funny? Funny? How?
How am I funny? Exactly? I have no wallet, Danny,
I have no phone, I have no shoes, I have nothing.
I'm absolutely naked right now. I am at the mercy
(21:47):
of Big Brother. And we are told by one of
the people at t s A that our traveling party
was red flagged for advanced screening. And and my wife
was totally freaked out at this because one of the
t s A agents when we got to the station
in Virginia said, we were waiting for you. We knew
(22:07):
you were coming, we just didn't know when. What do
do do? Do? Do Do? Do? Do? Do? Yes? Very threatening
overnight radio guy. Yeah, that it is because of your
big ratings. Man, Clearly this isn't not the number one
station anymore, is it. So the T s A Ah
(22:29):
just like listen you you're blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah. You have to go through an intense, intensive
screening and then you'll be on your way. Like what
the hell does that mean? So we had to go
one by one through the metal detector. They then took
us to the back room. You never want to go
(22:50):
to the back room at the T s A at
the airport, but here we were. So they go through
all our belongings with like a metal thing looking for
explosive devices, like I'm packing some kind of weapon or
something like that. Uh, they pat us down. I hadn't
been touched like that by someone other than my wife
(23:12):
in many many years. Uh. And uh even the bare
feet and all this stuff they did somebody take photos
of you guys earlier on the trip at the fireworks store.
Exactly right. They it's like metal wand thing they were
testing our hands for in feet and all this stuff
is next level h bull crap. Yeah, I was, I
(23:33):
was like, what did I do? I was like, I
didn't do anything. I drove around Wisconsin and eight cheese
kurds and throw around Virginia and eight chicken. What's the problem?
Chicken and biscuits? But full pat down the whole thing.
And I am happy to report though, Danny, we did
pass all the tests, since you know, we're not actually
terrorists and all that anyway, Uh, but it was still
(23:56):
a waiting game. At this point. We had no explanation,
There was no reasoning. The people in Virginia claimed they
didn't know why we were flagged. Keep in mind, we
flew from California to Chicago, no problems. Who from Chicago
to Virginia no problems, But it was the last leg
of the flight that we had had problems. Now, eventually
(24:19):
they did allow us to take our ship back and
we were able to make the flight. We had a
stop over in Dallas. By the way, I had a
Dalist celebrity sighting in Dallas dating. I ran into a
cop hating NBA broadcaster. The person who was talked about
a police escort. Yes, Mark Jones, dope from ESPN was
(24:44):
walking around there, and uh, he must be very uncomfortable.
There are a lot of police in the airport. I
don't know how he was able to pull that off,
but the woke NBA broadcaster was parading around the American
Airlines terminal in Dallas. But and then the other thing
that happened in das m wife almost missed the connecting
flight back to California because she decided to order a pizza.
(25:06):
Mm hm oh, I said, what are you doing ordering
your pizza? I can, I don't need the pizza. Pizza,
but the pizza takes a while to cook, daddy, and so,
needless to say, it was a long, a long wait
and uh, but she did make it on the flight
and that we got back and went peace and had
(25:28):
a late night, last last meal before back to work.
And what better way is to end a trip. We
didn't go to Raising Kings. They were closed, so in
and out. That's what a hamburger is all about. Cut that, mate.
That was the full circle conclusion of the trip. Yeah,
so yeah, good time. I had a fun time. And
(25:51):
I don't think I'll be going anywhere exotic the rest
of the year, but you never know, you never know
what's gonna pop up. But I don't like to take
a lot of time off. As you know, Danny and
so pretty much used most of it right here until
the end of the year. So I think we're good.
Yeah you are, Mr bank the hours. I gotta bank
those ours. Come on U. Now, did you listen to
(26:14):
any good local radio You didn't talk about that affiliate
that you heard. Did you guys listen in to any
of the local flavors of any of the states you
drove through. Yeah, we listened a little bit, but it
was mostly we were talking while we were driving. My
wife loves to talk, and I do, like that's one
spot I don't mind talking when I'm driving. When I'm like,
I can, I can shoot the crapoler there on the plane.
(26:36):
Right back. I listened our friend Alf the Alien Opiner,
who recommended to were a bunch of Gilbert Godfrey podcast.
Gilbert passed away recently and I was a big fan
of his, and so he recommended a couple of episodes.
There was one with Penn Galette, one with Bob Costas,
and so I listened to that and that was kind
(26:57):
of cool. Um, and then uh, just a lot of
Like I said, the Virginia sports radio thing was cool
here in the affiliate, and I will admit driving around
at night, I was scanning the dial trying to find
find the no show that was in for me, Like
maybe I could hear the what the station sounds like
driving around here? And uh, And I was told by
(27:18):
somebody that Nags had got hit by a big hurricane
as opposed to a small hurricane a few years ago.
It was pretty pretty messed up. But they cleaned up.
They cleaned up pretty nice. There it was. It was
cool and uh, with a little time, I've bow guarded
the entire weekend. Dan, It's a bad job by me. No,
I mean, you have lived an exciting couple of weeks here. Well,
(27:42):
it was. It was interesting, it was different, it was
out of the norm. It was I don't know, I'm
sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff. I just I'm trying
to think what else I could could add on to
this that I'm probably gonna regret down the line, saying, well,
what else happened? Because I went to an alligator They
have alligators in North Caroline. You know that. I didn't
know that. Yeah, there's an ali gator farm in Nag's Head. Well,
(28:06):
it's actually down the street from Nag's Head. I'm still
stuck on you guys, getting flagged like you were part
of the mob. Ah, yeah, don't get me sorry, And
I felt bad and then I was like I was
getting upset. But then right after us, this very large gentleman,
uh with no he was in a wheelchair, this black
(28:28):
guy in a wheelchair with no legs. He got pulled
into the back room. Like what the hell did that
guy do? He's I mean, he's not gonna run away
from I mean, what are you doing? You know? And
I was like, well it was ridiculous. I'm sure they
have their reasoning behind it, but questioning your wife, did
you get to use the famous good Fellows line, don't
(28:49):
look at me, pal, I gotta live with her? That
isn't I should have used that line, But no, I
mean it was just like the whole thing. And then
there was a theory going around. Maybe it's because there
was Mother's Day and they were on high alert or
something like that. I don't know, but the whole thing
was was ridunculous, ridonculus. Anything going on in your world,
(29:11):
Danny here, any any weird things take place here? And
it all that stands out not weird. But I did
get to go visit my pops while you were away,
so I went to Bath's Lake. Oh cool, it was
time for that annual fishing derby. Yeah, and of course
for the second year in a row. It was still
(29:36):
nice being out there on the lake. And the following
day got to take the Tinderoni and her kids to
visit Yosemite for the first time ever. They got to
see the great National Park of Yosemite here in California
in a way they could not believe their eyes when
we got to Yosemite Falls and we hiked to the
lower falls, took pictures right there, but the bottom on
(30:00):
the falls, they absolutely were blown away. Because when we
were first driving into Yosemite, they're like, this is overhyped,
just windy roads. But once you get into the actual park,
it's like, holy sh it, look at all of this.
Every which way you look there is a crazy big
waterfall and half dome and everything else around you. But
(30:24):
the drive in is pretty long, so it's underwhelming. Once
we are inside the park, they got it. They're like, Okay,
this is better than the hype once you're inside. So yeah,
it was a nice time in Yosemite. Uh. And of
course a long drive back after that, because you basically
have to backtrack your way out of Yosemite and through
(30:46):
beautiful Fresno, California. Yeah, no, I've not. I don't think
i've been to you. I've been to the Sequoia is
Is that that's different though, right, that's different. Yeah, that's
through Vicel you the Sequoias do run up towards Yosemite.
But yeah, you take the forty one through Bass Lake
and into Yosemite. My dad is basically twenty five minutes
(31:10):
right outside of the park entrance. Okay, So, and and
how's your pops doing everything? Good with that? And he's
doing good. He's in his first year of retirement. Yeah,
so he's trying to figure out how to maneuver things
and do add ons to his house and all that
without his regular paycheck coming in. Oh yeah, that is
a problem. What kind of work did yours? He co
(31:33):
owned a construction business all these years, so he can
probably do a lot of that stuff on his own.
That's what his wife's been leaning on to. My step
mom do that and do this, and he's like, hey,
slow down, I'm retired. Yeah yeah, well with the cost
of everything though, it's you that's the way to do
it and save some bucks on that though, you can yourself. Yeah,
(31:54):
he just redid their deck and so now I think
he wants to take a couple of months off before
the next big projects. See that's the move, Danny g
You know you're you found the queen Tinderoni now and
have him add on like you could get a fixer upper. Yeah,
and then have him do a lot of the dirty
work for you and boom, you got a dream house.
(32:16):
When he asked, Hey, what do you guys want as
your wedding gift? Like, well, Pops, why don't you bring
your toolbox with you? Pops, I'd like an extra bedroom
and bathroom. That's what I would like in a deck.
Can you make that happen? Pops? Can you? Can you
put that down? Now? Is your Is your dad excited
about retirement or is he kind of like, oh, man,
(32:37):
I don't I'm I'm gonna be bored out of my mind,
Like because there's there's all kinds of Some people love retirement,
the idea of retirement. Other people always have to be
busy and can't can't grasp what that means. Yeah, I
don't think he's into it yet because the last couple
of years he actually was supposed to have retired three
(32:57):
years ago. He stayed on a couple of extra years
because the business was doing so well. It was like
my step mom having to tear him away from it.
He's not feeling it yet. I think he's He's like Lebron,
he still had two good years left in him. She
got want me to turn my brain off because I'm
gonna have a huge basketby IQO. Yeah, well you you
(33:19):
would like to leave a year too soon than a
year too late, right, that's the beligic route. Yeah, the
Patriot way, yes, would be be the way to approach that. Well,
that's cool. So he got some quality time with the family, huh. Yeah,
it was nice to see him. My older brother met
us there for the fishing derby, so it was good
(33:39):
to see some some family there in the in the forest.
Now you're white. Was your wife she was there or
you're soon to be wife? Now? Yeah, she came. And
it's funny you were talking about your Chicago trip and
where you guys stayed in about hotels, Well, we stayed
in a chalet by the lake, and the word they
always used is rustic. Where they filmed the uh, the
(34:06):
legendary John Candy movie The Great Outdoors. That movie. Yeah movie.
It's great to be right there on the lake, but
it's all made out of wood, and there's some cobwebs
here and there, and it's a little dusty. I'll be
nice by saying she's a hotel snob, so she had
to get used to the rustic life a bunch of
(34:28):
city slickers coming in there when the weekend was over. Though,
she admitted that she really really liked it. It reminded her,
she said, of camping, but more of like glamping, like
you know, upscale camping, if you will. She had a
good time, and it was really nice seeing all those waterfalls.
And we got to rent bikes and ride them to
(34:48):
Mirror Lake inside Yosemite. Now those like regular bikes were
those like electric bikes, No regular bikes. So when when
it was uphill you there was some muffing and puffing
going on, you were feeling in it. It was so
good though, because once the Mirror Lake excursion was over,
then you could go downhill most of the way. Oh well,
that's that is good. And although that is also scary
(35:11):
if you have to stop all of a sudden you're
going downhill, I don't believe in momentum sports, but if
you're on a bike going downhill, there is actually momentum. Yeah.
And it wasn't the brakes on the handlebars. These are
just cruisers. So it was the old pedal backwards for
the break. Oh man, that's not no bayne on that no. No.
(35:32):
Lots of people on that trail too. It was a
lot of maneuvering in and out of people hiking the
other direction. Wow. And what kind of food options did
you have up There's not a lot to eat, right,
You have to bring your own food in? Is that
kind of no? You got Doucey's by the lake where
we stayed the chalets. They have two restaurants attached. They
(35:53):
had weddings going on while we were there. And this
Deucey's has a fancy place downstairs and more casual burger
place upstairs. There was a long wait downstairs. We went
upstairs and had the burgers and the and the fries
and hung out. And the last day before we left,
my dad and brother came there and we all had
(36:13):
a big meal there. And so I think by the
time we left, my girl had eaten at Doocey's four times,
there weren't a lot of options. There's like one Mexican
restaurant in town, yeah, that she and my step mom
drove to. Yeah. But other than that, it was a
(36:33):
lot of you know, really good bar food. I would say, yeah,
which I'm not opposed to, but you do want a
little variety is the spice of life. As somebody said
that all we gotta get out of here. We got
the mail bag on Sunday. Mail Mail Mail, keep those
letters coming in if you obviously can't get it in
for the Sunday mail bag, but for next week. Real
(36:55):
fifth Hour at gmail dot com, Real fifth Hour at
gmail dot com. There's a a light up ahead that says,
all right, we will do that. Have a wonderful rest
of your Saturday. Saturday Saturday, we'll talk to you with
the mail bag on Sunday. Asta pasta Popolician
Host
Ben Maller
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