Outmatched by Mother Nature

Hi again everybody and welcome back to the miles path cast the flagship podcast of going over to a king smother nature I there's I've talked about this a lot. I was going to do rim to rim the Grand Canyon running back last year didn't happen. There's fires around the 4th of July of last year. It burnt down like a water treatment plant between the fires creating risks of plant slides and the poison gas that we have released into the canyon paid to close it down so I had to cancel my plans couldn't do it. Everything gets fixed for this year everything's good to go I've been training for it for a very long time and you probably heard about it in the news but just a couple days ago there was the flash floods that happened after a rain storm and there's several people that didn't make it there's a ton of people still missing and also it washed out a ton of bridges which means they've kind of closed down with the north trail that I was going to run on they haven't kind of closed it they've closed down the north trail which means if I was to do tomorrow what it wouldn't happen like it's somehow I mean this this hasn't happened in decades and here we are back to back years there's a fire so down and there was now flash floods that have washed out bridges that have now shut it down it's crazy so it's such a bummer though I've been training for this you pretty much all year I've my watch told me today it's like you've run I was like 850 miles or something this year which pretty much all that's been attributed to this training because it's such it's you know it's a 48 mile there and back kind of thing with a ton of elevation gain and if I was to calculate that out like if I would let's say it was like a like an 80 eight minute mile on average I've trained for this for 6,800 minutes which is just absurd and to be here right at the finish line right at the end and to have it close again is just such a bummer and then the idea of like if I do this again next year I'm going to do this all over again is it's a bummer it's such bad luck kennels convinced that clearly my other nature is trying to tell me not to do this in the back of my mind like third times a charm but with all that said all hopes not lost when they announced I got on their website at the north trail so that it's there's like a South trail no North trail and to do what I want to do I you got to do both you're going all the way through when you're turning around you come in all the way back it says that the North trails closed until further notice now the trail closes October 15th one way or the other so in my mind it would have been just as easy for them to say hey trails closed for us the year sorry guys they didn't say that though so I'm holding out hope that for some acts of you know some some small miracle like maybe the bridges aren't all the way gone or they're easily fixed or there's alternative you know routes or something but it's not looking great it's not looking great especially with people still missing and the also a big like water line was taken out so there's a water problem down there like you can't even stay in the grand can at this point you can't stay like on South Rim because there's no water it's just it's one thing after another but it's it's crazy that we're I'm like five weeks out and then this all happens the worst part is like mom and the way and we're going to come down and now that's you know we all have down refundable flights which sucks like I guess it's overlining is the flight was only two hundred bucks down to Phoenix which cheap flight but at the same time it's like that's two hundred bucks we're not getting back and I have no interest in going if I can't do the whole thing like just the idea of going halfway doesn't do it for me especially within having to pay for like the hotel and stuff it just it doesn't make it worth it so I've come up with a backup plan and if again if this doesn't work out at the Grand Canyon's toast and it's close for the second year in a row when I was going to do this thing I'm going to do something called the Timberline Trail which is a round mount hood in Oregon which is like an hour outside of Portland so it's it's still close I don't need a flight I can drive there really easily this is significantly safer than doing rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon because it's it's you know it's not down in the desert and it's more accessible and it's it's still 40 miles and I was looking at it like I got a little like anxious like looking at it and that's that's what I want I want something to scare me and it's getting it's 40 miles whereas the Grand Canyon is worried about the heat the excessive heat of like a hundred degrees down in the bottom of it here you know obviously outside of Portland in Oregon in late September you're doing with the cold so I got to figure out like do I want to go out and buy like a fancy running jacket or even it's like a running jacket in general we're going to gamble on it because it's supposed to be like 50 to 60 degrees so I got to figure that out the other part is water going into the Grand Canyon there's like water stops along the way so you don't let the carry a whole bunch here there's none like you have to cross like there's there's creeks and rivers all over the place like you can do that but you have to like filter it so I have to get like filtered water bottles or some way of figuring that out and you also like I said it's across the creeks which is crazy like there's four or five like little things out bridges you got to get across and it depends on how much snow melt there is like how much water's flowing through there so it's just it's a totally different deal it's still a lot of elevation change it's still a really long ways it's still like a trail run and like one of the harder ice you can do in a day in the US which is exactly what I want but it plays second fiddle obviously to the rim to rim to rim and it's a bummer but it's a backup plan I've got in place I can go do that if I if I need to sometime in late September early October man fingers crossed that by some miracle they get these bridges fixed or maybe the bridges were never been taken out as all just rumors that they can open this thing again but oh I've been working on this all year and it's back that it closed the last minute for the second year in a row and this just never happens it's just insane maybe to sign maybe maybe this is just all good fortune along the way anyways today on the show I don't think I've got a long one today I got a quick aisle you one or a quick tell me something good and I owe you one shone's what you into getting back to something I've talked about in the past and then we'll look it out of here but but tell me something good tell me something good after I recorded my last week's podcast I got multiple texts from mom and dad I talked about on the on the podcast that I I owe Darling Perkins she's a head cook at was a head cook at Garfield elementary she made a magnificent magnificent school lunches like they were all great and like that a lot of it was homemade it wasn't frozen or out of a box like she did a really good job going above and beyond and we'd we'd great school lunches but amidst that I had wrongly assumed that she had passed away because this was a long time ago this was 30 years ago turns out she's still alive and kicking so I I I'm spreading false rumors the tell me something good is that she's still she's still alive she's she's apparently doing good I don't I don't know much else like mom and dad knew that immediately we're out of the bat and like sent me some stuff saying so but sorry about the darling if you ever come across this your lunches were fantastic and I'm glad you're still around with us it's just man it just for me it seems like a long time ago but as it's obviously now that I'm adult time just seems to pass differently and it's it's one of those weird things and I'm I'm glad that I'm so glad that I was wrong about that which is great I owe you one last week I had my work aversory my work anniversary I have now been at where I'm at now north west bokeh and pediatrics for seven years as of October 26th which is crazy seven years is a very very long time yeah seven years and I owe looking back a grateful for the people here that have kept me around this long and that it's worked out the way that it has been to be and perhaps more importantly is the people that I've worked with because I've worked with the same people for a very very long period of time now two of the therapists that I work with I've been with them for six years almost the entire time they're like students of mine when I first started and now they work here and then another one just seem Sam and then Alicia's been here for five years that's a really long time in the therapy world and a really long time to be the same people and a really long time to be very very fortunate to be with awesome people because I I'm very grateful that I get to work with a lot of my best friends it's really really cool especially given that we work in close confines in between oh and the people that have kept me around this long and I know in them for sticking around this long all the therapists when you know like I said in the therapy world people move around all of the time whether it's just to go to different clinic or to be in a different type of therapy like we do pediatrics with kids if I wanted to tomorrow I could go work with burn victims or I could go work with older adults or I could go work in a school or I could go work in a like a work rehab place it's a weird giant umbrella therapy and the fact that you know Sam and Alicia and Jesse have all worked with me for this period of time I'm so grateful that I've had that chance because it just doesn't happen and between you know I've I've seen other places when I had to like do job shadowing and where I used to work kind of the same thing like you you take it for granted the people that you work with because you don't always have it just right like you there's there's always going to be those riffs but we just we haven't had that yes some people have come and gone but the fact that I've been with people that I've been with for as long as I have and then also a couple's that you know I've now been for two years Sydney and Serena grateful for that great but I've been here for as long as I have it was a weird story because like when I first got the job again in 2019 I applied and I had asked my manager my boss at the time for a letter of referral it turns out he saw the job and then applied himself luckily though I somehow got the job over him and it's all worked out and I've played this perfect middle ground because I'm kind of in charge and it's awesome that I'm in this position and also not having to like own my own clinic because it's it's hard in the therapy world at this point like to run your own clinic because the margins are so slim there's been a couple clinics I've closed down just in the last couple weeks couple months and the fact that I'm in the position that I'm in with also you know being this middle ground of also still like working as a part of a medical clinic has been has been awesome but seven years it's a long time also I was thinking the people that I work with again as an adult time does pass us so differently Jesse and Sam have been with for six years and that's the equivalent of like us starting first grade together and now like going into seventh grade like we've been around all through the elementary years now pretty much to the middle school years it's just that's crazy like we've been around each other for so long and I mean This doesn't happen and I'm so grateful that I get to be at this people every single day and to work as closely over y'all do and to be as close to them as I am. It's been awesome. So, grateful for all that. Last but not least, Shawn's what are you into? - All right, listeners, it's time for hidden passions, wild hobbies, and that one thing that you didn't know miles was obsessed with. Buckle up, it's time for Shawn's, what are you into? - I mentioned this before, several months ago. I last year, it was in April. They announced what's called the slate pickup. And I was one of the very first to submit a reservation, basically a reservation to eventually pre-order. He had to pay 50 bucks and it was completely refundable, but it saved your spot in line that if this ever came to market, you'd have an early window to pre-order it. Fast forward a year, and they formally announced, and they formally announced the fact that you can now pre-order one. And it turns out that I was one of the very first to do it. So, I had a very early window if I wanted it to pre-order one. My window would have been January to March of next year, which is one of the first windows to come up. If I wanted to put down another 250 bucks to officially like pre-order one, and kind of go forward to the process. At the time I didn't know if it was gonna work, just because the time of my life that I initially saw, it was different than where I was. Now I've got two kids, it's a little bit different, and I didn't think it was gonna work out. But I did a deep dive into like thinking about it, because my current pickup, my Silverado, it's got 120,000 miles on it. I've had it for eight years. Yeah, I've heard that out, it's about 15,000 a year. Now, as a lot of people know, this isn't new news. Once you start getting over 100,000, and then over 150,000, you start really running a risk for potentially big repair costs, like things to go wrong, whether it's transmission or the engine or whatever it may be. It's getting up there in age, and you're starting to run some risks, especially with kind of bigger pickups like this. And I mean, I've already gone through that once, I had to rebuild the transmission at one point, and it was 6,000 bucks. And the idea of going through that again, for pretty much no reason sucks. So I was like, all right, what do I do? In two years, I'll be at 150,000 miles. Do I, then at that point, trade my pickup in, at which point it'll be worth even less than it is now, and the price of another pickup that I'd get, whether it's used or new, no matter what, it's gonna be higher in price than they are now, which no matter what, I'm trading for something and for less value and then buying something more expensive, just because the mileage is getting way up there. Or what I could do is get one of these slate pickups, they're significantly cheaper than used or new bigger pickups, like a Colorado or Silverado. And I'll also bear in mind like, I need a bigger pickup. I've got kids, gotta be able to haul them. I use like the bed, I haul stuff all the time where that's play structures or dirt. I use a big pickup for its purposes a lot of the time. And the idea of getting a car just wouldn't work. So I could either, you know, keep my whole pickup, you know, trying another couple of years out of it, that sell it for less and then buy another one, and then you got your way higher price all of a sudden, even buying used, or I could get this cheaper slate pickup now, pay a lot less for it, still hold on to my Silverado and still ultimately be out less money than I would otherwise be. And just hang on to both. That way I can sell the benefits of having a big pickup that still got some mileage left on it, some good mileage left, and then also have a smaller pickup. The details on the slate, it's like it's an EV, it's got 200 miles of range, 205 miles of range. It's a little pickup. It looks like a really good little pickup. Like some pickups now, it's like the, even like the Silverados, like the new EV Silverados, I don't even look that good. Like they look like a Ridge line, which also doesn't look that good. These look like a really cool little small little pickup. The idea is it's bare bones. It's meant to be really, really cheap. It doesn't have power windows. It doesn't have any screens. It doesn't even come with a radio, like the bottom of the barrel package, like the most basic package. It doesn't have any of that. It's literally called a blank slate for a reason. And because of that, it's much cheaper. It doesn't come with any paint. It's made out of like a composite siding and such, so you can get wraps for it, but it doesn't come painted. It's just, it's meant to be cheap and it's meant to be a small pickup. And because of that, it's got some hate because it's like, oh, people are like, who would want, you know, pickup without power windows and screens and it's like, no, that's awesome. Like growing up on a farm, I love, I have no problem with any of that. Just having like the bare bones level of it. Grant it with that set I would, if I, well, the whole point of this is I went through with it. I decided to go that route to get the smaller pickup to have the best of kind of both worlds. Yeah, it'll be double insurance on both vehicles, but I think I can play it just right where I can get a low miles discount on both of them. If I level the miles out in just the right way. And I'm excited about it. I didn't think it was gonna work. I decided to pull the trigger. My, like I said, my reorder window, which almost expired, but I took advantage of it is between January and March next year, which means I now have a couple months before I officially preorder it in December. You know, like I've got my spot saved of like deciding what like components that I want with it. And part of that's like what kind of, what color of wraps that I want, which I love to do wraps because they break it up. Like it's not just a solid color, like a lot of vehicles nowadays. It's kind of how they used to be. Like you can get them in, like for example, the old Chevy's used to be like two-tone Chevy's and it looked really, really cool. I could do that with it or I could get like a, kind of a stripe, but a different color, like down the middle, different color hoods. There's a lot of different options. I'm excited about trying to figure out what I want there. And then also if I want to, well, I think I want to get the radio. That's a for sure thing. I use that all the time. And the biggest question is if I want to get like the two-seater package or not the two-seater, like the rear seat package. So you can get the bare bones, so they pick up, it's two-seater, it's customizable. So like later on I could buy these, the back row seats basically, or I could buy it now. And it turns it from like a small pickup into more like a bronco look. It's got kind of a makeshift like canopy on the back and it comes with the seats and it's, it's all designed in a really smart way that it makes it doable. So I could do that and then I could take the top off and have it be like more like a topless Jeep look with the back seat. But again, that all makes it more expensive. And it's like, how do I want to play? Do I want to have it? So I just carry the kids in my Silverado and then have this for like the daily driver back and forth to work to save a lot of money on like the gas and such. Or do I get it and have the back seat now? So I can have them. It's all decisions I got to make in the next couple months. But I'm excited 'cause I think it's gonna work. I guess I put my money down. I'm excited to get the pre-order in and then to eventually get this thing early, early next year, but it's gonna be cool 'cause I loved having a small pickup. Don't get me wrong, I love my Silverado now but the way that these things look, it just, it looks like it's throwing it back. I love the idea of just kind of rolling back the technology and just having, you know, simply how it was forever ago. And I know a lot of people had to draw back but for me it's a win. I'm excited about it. It's gonna be cool when it's got to figure out how I want to play it, what I want to get. But I think this made, this route made the most sense and I'm very, very happy about that. So that's what I'm into. Trying to figure all that stuff out and getting that on the road. Thank y'all for listening. I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time, as always. Go Mariners and we'll catch y'all next week. Bye. (upbeat music) - The picture of the men's, it's gonna, keep that going, man. - Roll for the rims. - Do we have all the colors for? - It's all for the men's. - It's not. - Which ones? - All of those, but not the ones. Not the next one, Jessica. - I was telling pink for mom, orange, red. - Pink for you, actually pink for mom, orange for you. Pink, red and green and yellow, and blue for me. - Which ones for gaps? - Oh, she can get that one. - That means it's such a good painting, good job. - Oh, she like, blue and blue. - What's green earlier? - What? - Earlier you told me green was for clear. - Oh no, it's fine, she had black in her shell. She couldn't get that one. - Okay. - You can find some very green in your box. - Good job.