Listen to the PODCAST HERE – Bikepacking MO and Backpacking AR

Joey – Hey everyone, and welcome to the Overland Podcast. I’m here with my beautiful wife, Gia, co-adventurer and travel partner, and pretty much do everything together. And she’s joining me tonight as we had a little bit of a cancellation. Somebody had to cancel on us, but so she’s filling in, and I appreciate you taking time to do that, babe.

Gia – Of course. It’s more time with you.

Joey – Yeah, it’s fun. And plus, we have a lot to talk about. We’ve done a lot lately. Yeah, we have done a lot lately. So, thank you for joining us. We appreciate you being here on the Overland Podcast.

SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT – This podcast tonight is sponsored by UltralightSacks. We are good friends with Luke and his wife. They are here in Arkansas and have been making sacks and different ways to organize your adventure since two thousand nineteen. So, check them out at ultralightsacks.com and see what they can do for you. They have all kinds of stuff and I can put it up on the screen here. They have backpacks. They have Eco-light sacks. They have gear haulers. They have all kinds of stuff that they can make. So just give them a call. They are awesome. And these right here are my favorite, the Roll Top Compression Sacks, which are ultralight in DCF, and I love it. They pack away all of our stuff, and we absolutely love them. So, give Luke and his wife a call, www.ultralightsacks.com. That’s U-L-T-R-A-L-I-T-E-S-A-C-K-S.com, and they will help you out any way that you can.

Joey – We used some of their stuff a couple weekends ago on the Katy Trail and got to try a few things out, plus used a few things on the workout trail. trip of the season so it was nice to get out there and use a few other things and see how they would work for us so anyway so how you been doing babe you doing good

Gia – Yes, it’s the weather is was pleasant this afternoon and evening when we went outside and practiced setting up a new tent The breeze was blowing. It’s a gorgeous evening watching the clouds skitter across the sky. It’s spirit week at school. So that’s fun. Red ribbon week.

Joey – Yeah. And we’re saying no to drugs this week.

Gia – Yeah. Just this week. Just this week.

Joey – But say yes to candy because Halloween’s coming. Halloween’s coming in two days.

Gia – I know. And I was talking to another teacher today. They said that they institute a candy tax, that if the kids want to eat candy in their classroom, that they have to bring candy to the teacher. And I was like, seriously, I know. I thought that is such a good idea.

Joey – It is a good idea. It’s a good way to get some chocolate. I know. So, I wonder for our listeners out there, I know what we do, but I wonder for our listeners, are you a turn the porch light on and welcome the children? Are you a porch light off and hide in the basement kind of person?

Gia – I know what we do. I didn’t used to do what we do.

Joey – Yeah, we’re a hide in the basement kind of people. Actually, this Thursday night is the only night that we have that we don’t have anything going this week. So, we’re actually going to use that as a date night and go out. And while everybody else is gathering candy, we’re going to be doing some fun stuff together. Go get some candy.

Gia – Yeah, a fifty-cent corndog at Sonic.

Joey – Hey, that sounds like a good date night to me.

Gia – Yeah. I mean, every Halloween I used to meet one of my friends in her neighborhood and we’d pass out. We’d sit in the front yard and admire all the kids’ costumes and pass out the candy. And then last year, we just hunkered down, I think.

Joey – We did.

Gia – We had a good evening at home. We made yummy food and It’s great.

Joey – Yeah, our neighborhood is not really… one that people flock to with, with kids, they flock to the one that’s next to us. So, it’s really neat because that’s the one that we walk in and ride our bikes in. And apparently, they have a Halloween decoration competition every year. And so, it’s fun to get over there in the evenings and the mornings to see all the, the scary decor and see how some people just go all out for it.

Gia – Never understood that. I mean, there are some fun things, And some creepy displays. There’s one where they have gotten all these dolls. I mean, it’s got to be probably fifty dolls, thirty dolls. I don’t know how many dolls, little dolls, all kinds. And they look all creepy. They’re not, they’re just spooky because it’s the number of dolls. It’s not like they go out in blood and have done anything to them, but they just look like dolls that they’ve, you know, all different kinds of baby dolls. And the baby dolls are all, have their arms up and they’re carrying, and you can, it looks like a body wrapped in. Carrying a body. It looks like a body wrapped in plastic. And it’s like baby dolls carrying a full-size person body. They have all these baby dolls and then they’re all carrying the body together. And that is genius and creepy.

Joey – Yeah, it is. It is. Well, I tell you what, I love this time of year. I love the time when Halloween comes around because it’s kind of a good and a bad. The good is the fall weather’s coming. The cooler mornings are here. The cool middle of the day hasn’t really got here yet. We had about one week of it.

Gia – Yeah, I agree. Like upper eighties, low nineties.

Joey – Yeah. The cooler weather’s coming. So, we know when Halloween gets here, the cooler weather’s coming. But the one thing I do not like is when we fall back on time and we actually do that this coming weekend. And I don’t really like that because the sun starts coming up real early in the morning, but it goes down about five or six o’clock in the afternoon.

Gia – I’m not a big fan of that. It just makes the evening seem so dark for so long. Yeah, the time after work is very short. Yeah, where we can actually get outside and enjoy it.

Joey – Yeah, we’ll have to use our headlamps a little more, our bike lights a little more, just to enjoy the dark. Because they keep saying that they’re going to change that, but they just haven’t got around to it, I guess.

Gia – No. When the weather starts turning, that means that they’re It’s hiking season again. It’s hiking and getting outside and doing things where you don’t worry about boiling or roasting in the heat. Because that is one thing that I don’t enjoy hiking in hot weather.

Joey – No, me either. I don’t find it fun. It’s not fun. it’s not fun. But one thing that we did do a couple of weeks ago, we actually went on our first bike packing trip and I kind of wanted to talk about that a little bit. We discovered this trail, uh, the Katie K-A-T-Y bike packing trail, bicycle trail, it’s a rail trail up in Missouri that goes pretty much between Kansas City and St. Louis. And we discovered this trail several months ago when your niece, Chloe, went on it with one of her friends and she was telling us. And so, we decided to check that out, build us some bikes and put some packs on there and go up and experience that. And we actually had a fall break for the first time this year. So, we go up and spend some time up there. When we got ready for this, it was one thing, it was kind of nerve unnerving for me because I’d never done anything quite like this before. I lived out of a backpack off my feet, but I haven’t traveled and lived off a bicycle before. What did you think? What was running through your mind when you thought that we were going to do something like this?

Gia – I was excited because I was like, it’ll give us a chance to be outside and be active. But in a way where if the day gets really hot, I feel I can bike more in the heat than I can walk or hike in the heat. And so, I was like, if it gets too hot, I can handle it. I was just nervous because… We were in school right up until the day that we left. And then the day before, like the night that we left, I had parent conferences all day long. And prepping for a backpacking trip takes time. Prepping for a bikepacking trip where we were going to be biking and then camping and then biking and then camping, I just was like, I don’t have the time. I don’t have the margin in my life right now and these days getting ready for it. To really figure out, like, all of the little details of what to pack and what to put and all that. So, you actually were genius in what you figured out. Because Chloe and her, from when they did it, they started in one spot and they biked a couple hundred. They didn’t do the whole thing, but they did over a hundred miles. Maybe I think it was like a hundred and. I can’t remember. But they biked camp, biked camp, biked camp. And then they took a train back to where they started. And it was just one of those things that sounded awesome. But the logistics, I just was worried about. I don’t have enough space in my head right now to be able to figure out the packing and all the stuff. And how to make that work with the amount of time that we had. Because we were only going to have… Even though we had a fall break, after factoring in travel and everything like that, we really were only going to have maybe like two or three days of biking. So anyway, you came up with a very novel idea of how to fix that. We were able to kind of ease our way into the bikepacking.

Joey – You know, we have traditionally been an overlanding podcast and talked about overlanding things. But we have also worked into the podcast and talked about things that you can do while you’re overlanding. And this is we kind of mix the two. And, you know, that was one of the things you talked about the train. That was one of the things that kind of drew me to this trail was the convenience of being able to park in a place and ride your bike as far as you want to go and then hop on a train and it takes you back to your car. You don’t have to stage like a lot of times when we do point to point backpacking trips, we have a stage a car. So, we have something at the end, a ride at the end to take you back to the car. And after doing some research on it, there’s four or five different Amtrak stations that you can get to and Amtrak will load your bike for free. Then they’ll take you back to where you started and you just hop off and get back in your car. But easing into it and this being the first thing, first time that we had ever done anything like this, I thought it would be a little bit better if we would base camp and maybe base camp and go out and come back. And then we could go the other way and go out, come back, and then maybe we can move and then go out and see how it would work. And I found a campground that’s right on the trail. It’s just east of Boonville. Literally, the trail runs through the campground.

Gia – We were camped thirty feet from the trail. We got to see people come back.

Joey – In fact, when we were putting the tent up, there were bikepacking people that went by. We were like, oh, that’s another one! Yeah, we got to see the people that were going by on their bikes. That was pretty cool. I can’t remember the name of the campground. You call it…

Gia – Katie Roundhouse. Katie Roundhouse. Wasn’t that… Yeah, I would highly recommend that place.

Joey – It was really, really nice. The showers were nice. Bathrooms were nice. It was thirty bucks a night. And that was with electricity and water. So, you could do it cheaper. I think it was eighteen to twenty dollars a night for the primitive camping. And it was it was really nice.

Gia – Yeah, it was. So, so that’s what the, the solution that Brofessor came up with was rather than as camp ride, camp ride, camp ride down KATY and back. It was perfect to use our Subaru over, our rooftop tent camp in one spot, ride one direction and come back camp, ride the other train, come back camp.

Joey – And then we packed up and then we drove down a little bit and then went out and back further. Anyway, so that is how we handled it. And it was fantastic. It was wonderful. I love the combination of overlanding and using our overlanding stuff and also having the bike adventure every day.

Gia – It was a great way because it gave us a little bit of, it gave me a little bit more room of not having to worry about like, making sure that everything will fit in my bike that I need and not having to go through every single, like come up with, you know, every single potential thing that could happen that I need to prepare for. Give me a little bit of room, a little bit of grace.

Joey – Yeah. And it was good. A lot of people are not fans of the out and back because they say, well, I’ve already seen this area before, but to me, it, you, you get a whole different view when you go out and you come back. I’ve never had a hard time because trails, we know this too, like trails feel completely different when you hike at one direction versus hiking at the other.

Gia – Like you just, the views that you see, I mean, and you’ll do loop trails. Like, I mean, in the Tetons, there’s, you know, at the national park there, there’s a really famous trail that depending on whether you hike it counterclockwise or clockwise, I mean, they recommend both.

Joey – Like you want to do the trail twice because the views are, that are completely different even because anyway, so I’ve never been one that was bothered by hiking out and back because you just notice things differently.

Gia – You do. You notice the scenery a lot different.

Joey – And with the views that we had on this trail, you wanted to get both directions because there was no way to be able to take it all in if you were just going one direction in one time and you saw it and that was it. But I did a little research on the interwebs and got on the Googles and the interwebs and did some searching about what was the most scenic area, the best area. If you were going to go to one area, what area would you go to? And everybody suggested the town of Rocheport was the most scenic area, had the most things around it. And we stayed about ten or eleven miles west of Rocheport, about three miles east of Boonville. That’s where this Katie Roundhouse Trail was, and it was in a really good spot. We got there. We left decently early in the morning from northwest Arkansas, drove about five or six hours, got up there about two o’clock in the afternoon. We got everything set up, got on our bikes and rode three miles or so into Boonville, went to a store or two and went to a nice little bar there to get dinner it was sweet they have they have some neat restaurants.

Gia – well I think we went to Maddie’s but they have a great antique store I mean a really neat antique store that we just had a good time poking our poking around through Yeah, it was really nice.

Joey – Of course, in the evenings, a lot of the things that were there were only open for lunch. And so, we didn’t have a huge number of choices. But if you needed to restock or anything like that, they had convenience stores, grocery stores and things like that in there. The little town that we stayed in was east. What was it?

Gia – It was like Old Franklin or New Franklin? Old Franklin. We stayed in Old Franklin. And to get to Old Franklin, you got to take a dirt road to get to Old Franklin. And Old Franklin actually has an old post office, an old church, and the campground. And that’s pretty much it. A few people live there, not many, but you actually have to go on a dirt road out into the country to get to old Franklin.

Joey – I don’t guess I realized the farmland that we would be right in the middle of. So, we were right in the middle of corn, soybean, you know, heaven. So it was, it was definitely a pretty place.

Gia – It was. And one of the neat things that first night driving in Booneville is you cross, there’s a great big bridge and you cross, it wasn’t Missouri that we crossed. It was really beautiful going across the river and feeling, I mean, that was a neat little challenge. I enjoyed that a lot. It was just a really neat time to be on the bikes.

Joey – And then also know that when you finished, you had your comfortable, our comfortable rooftop tent to get to.

Gia – Yeah. Joey is, I mean, Joey already has an iron butt. He is, his, his nether regions have already been inoculated to the hard, the hard riggers of a bicycle seat. My posterior, it was not, I was a little nervous about like how my butt was going to feel. And it was just one of those where I really wanted to do, I love our active vacations and things that we do, but it was one of those where I was a little nervous about like, okay, if we like, if we have to get all, well, what if my body gives up before I need it to before we’re able to get back to where we’re… Before we’re able to get to the train or whatever like that. So, it was really nice the way that we did this. I think it gave me a chance to ease more into the whole biking for long periods of time. Because even though we’re biking now several times a week, we still… our bike rides are usually like six miles or less, you know, and that’s a big six miles is a pretty big, it’s enough to start feeling it, but it’s a pretty big difference between, you know, twenty-four, twenty-five miles.

Joey – Yeah. And that was that was another thing that really kind of made me shy away from doing the train thing, because on this trail, there’s no public land. You actually have to sleep or if you’re going to camp, you can camp in the city. You can camp under pavilions in a little town. You have to camp in campgrounds or things like that. So, there’s no public land. Well, there there’s a few places. I take that back. There are a few places.

Gia – Yeah. Like you can’t pitch a tent. You always have to have a spot like a.

Joey – And so, in order to get to those places, some days we were going to have to do twenty-eight miles or, you know, upwards of thirty miles. And then over the three-day period, we were going to be there. We were going to have to cover about eighty something miles in order to get to the next spot. train station to get back to the car. And then once we got back to the car, we were going to have to ride about fifteen miles from the train station back to the car. So, it was logistically not going to work for us. So, to combine the overlanding rig along with the bicycles, it worked out great. It worked out great. And it wasn’t going to push us. I mean, the first day we did three and a half miles twice. So, we did about seven or eight miles. The second day we did twenty-three miles.

Gia – And we got in there late that day. We got to camp and camp about three or four o’clock.

Joey – Yeah, it was not like we had. But the first full day we did twenty-two, twenty-three miles. And that was our longest day.

Gia – Yeah, it was like twenty-four miles because it was like twelve miles because I made us go. a couple of miles past the town and then turn around and go back. Anyway, that was our longest day. And the next day we were feeling it.

Joey – Yeah. We were feeling it. Even though one of the things that really drew me to this, to this trail was it, it being a rail trail, there’s no big hills to climb. There’s, there’s no big downhills, no big uphills. It’s pretty much flat, but you’re still having to pedal. One thing that people don’t realize is if you do on flat and yeah, that draws you to it. Well, you don’t have the big long downhills that you can coast. You’re pretty much pedaling the whole time.

Gia – Yeah. And you don’t have a big rest period.

Joey – So, but there are benches along the trail where you can stop and take a snack. We took food with us. We took snacks with us. We had our packs with us so we could shed all of our morning cold clothes. And that was really nice because we would start out dressed pretty well. The temperature was very variable. It was like, it would get down in the upper forties at night. And then during the day it was up in the eighties. So yeah, forty degrees difference each day. Big difference. The weather was so nice. It was so nice. As long as you were in the shade. And there were time periods when we were like, I really want to take this jacket off when I hit the sun, but when I hit the shade, it’s perfect. When I hit the sun, I’m hot. When I hit the shade, I’m perfect. There were a few different times where we were trying to get our temperatures right, but the rest of the time, the weather was really, really nice. I was very pleased with it. Give me your takeaway. Is it something that you would want to do again?

Gia – Oh, of course. Yeah. I loved it. Um, I loved, yeah, I loved, okay. I’ll do anything for a snack. I’ll do anything for like, we’re doing this and there’s something interesting at the end or there’s something interesting in the middle. So having, I mean, having a place like the trail go through all these little towns where we’re leaving one interesting town and going to like Rochefort. And when we get to Rochefort, there is like, first of all, a fantastic cafe of the Merriweather Cafe. This trail follows part of the Lewis and Clark expedition, like the Katie trail where they were. There were all this Lewis and Clark stuff. Merriweather is Merriweather Lewis’s first name. The Merriweather Cafe is, we ride our bikes to Rochefort. We have this amazing meal right next to the Katy trail. And it just has, um, on this day, it, um, the parking lot was full, but they had bike rack after bike rack, after bike rack outside this cafe, just full of bicycles. Cause that’s how most of the people were got to the spot was through biking there. So, after we ate, we walked through the town and they had like we they had a couple of churches. They had really pretty old houses. They had some neat little stores. It’s something where, you know, whether it’s a, you know, cool site in the middle of, you know, Texas or a beautiful view or whatever, like there are little things to look forward to. And I love that kind of adventure. I love that kind of adventure. Something where there’s a little something to look forward to. So especially if it’s food.

Joey – Yeah. The very first place we got to that was significant was the train tunnel. We got to the train tunnel, which has some pretty good history to it. It talks about some banditos that took it over hundreds of years ago, thought they wouldn’t get paid enough. They stockpiled some dynamite in there and took it over until the people could go and get it. It’s a long tunnel. It’s rock and it’s been blasted out of the mountains. So, it’s like some of it you can see they shorted up with, you know, other materials. But some of it, I mean, it’s just the mountain. You’re just driving through the mountain. It’s so cool.

Gia – Yeah. And then you cross a nice little creek over a bridge and go right into town. It’s right there at the town. and then you keep going and then, and then you’re on the Missouri river and these huge, you know, Missouri river on one side, huge bluffs on the other side. And then, um, the next day, like we went to, one of the oldest trees in Missouri, the oldest Burr Oak, isn’t it? Like it’s three or four hundred years old, expected to live a hundred more, and so there were just little like little neat things each day to look forward to that were like, OK, you just need about ten miles to get there. You just need about a little bit to get there.

Joey – Yeah. And it was there was a wide array of people that were there, too, because Rocheport is one of the. main places where the Katy Trail State Park has one of its entrances and parking areas. And a lot of people would just come there for the day. You know, the first day that we were there was a Saturday. It was very busy on Saturday. Sunday was not quite so bad. But on Saturday, it was very busy and the parking lot was full and the cafe was full. It was one of the places where people actually come and spend the day. There were people that were there on e-bikes, there was one guy that was doing the trail on a unicycle that we got to see, which was really neat. There were people that were walking, people that were running, walking dogs. But then there were the hardcore people. There were the bike packers that were actually just, you know, going through. We didn’t see a lot of them that had stopped. Most of them flew by us like we were standing still.

Gia – Yeah, exactly. It was a little early in the day for them to stop.

Joey – So that’s one of the things you have to think about when you’re going through these little towns is how crowded it’s going to be. It was really nice to get away. When we got down to the tree, which was about nine miles east of Rocheport, there was one group that was there and that was it. It wasn’t crowded at all. And then going back towards the West, when we were staying at the Katie Roundhouse, the trail was pretty much empty. We would pass two or three people. It wasn’t that crowded. But you just have to keep that in mind when you’re in the towns. That’s where most of the people are. And there’s all different kinds of bikers.

Gia – Like what you were saying, the bikepacking, there were quite a few of those. They didn’t stop where we stopped because they had places to go. Like you’re trying to get to the next destination, thirty or four miles away, you know, to camp. But, you know, people that were out for a leisurely bike ride with their families, people that were, you know, wearing all their sleek bike gear with their sleek, you know, gravel bikes or whatever, trying to get some miles in. I think the other thing is like whatever your expertise is, you can feel comfortable doing it. Yeah, it was all kinds. All kinds.

Joey – For sure. Well, I enjoyed it. It was kind of a chance that we took, something new that we wanted to do, a new experience that we wanted to try. And I think it paid off because it’s one of the things that I love now. And I love looking up the rail trails and seeing where they are all over the United States because there is a There is a whole bunch of them all over the United States that they’ve converted from train tracks into bike trails now. And so that’s become something that I think we’ll look forward to doing more of.

Gia – I love it. Cover more miles like I love hiking. Don’t get me wrong. But like for us to cover four miles is going to take at least three days of hiking for us to cover four miles on a bike before, I mean, our butts may give up before Lake Zoo, but I can do forty miles faster than I can, you know, biking than I can do forty miles walking. And so, I really appreciate that as well.

Joey – You can definitely see more things in a, in a, in a shorter amount of time and, and also get a good workout in, you know, you’re being active, getting out there and trying to stay, trying to stay healthy and it’s just another way of being able to do that. And I really enjoyed it. I did.

Gia – Plus, you know, being able to use our Subaru in a different way, you know, we cook some meals. We made coffee every morning in the back.

Joey – You know, we were able to take our fridge, take some food and have picnics along the way. And we stopped at Bucky’s on the way and picked up a few things. So, we had to get our, what was it? Butt nuggets or something like that.

Gia – Bucky nuggets? Beaver nuggets.

Joey – Beaver nuggets. Yeah. Beaver butt nuggets. Something like that. But anyway, we had to stop and get a few things at the Bucky’s there in Springfield. New one. First time I’d ever been to that one. Oh, my goodness. It was like the best. It was crowded. It was a metropolis of people.

Gia – It sure was. But it was nice to be able to have all that stuff, the fridge, the kitchen, the rooftop tent, and be able to take our clothes, have a shower and things like that.

Joey – So, it was a little bit different experience than actually doing a bikepacking trip. But I think breaking it in, that’s a great place to start and a great way to start. I loved sleep I loved our Subaru and it made us fall in love even more in love with our setup because this is the longest, I think that we both camped in the Subaru um and it was it was we just had such a good comfortable time we had our chairs up you know our chairs set up and We just would sit there in the evenings and read our books and chat. We just had a good time. We actually got invited to a retirement party. Got to hear a band play for a little bit. Got some free barbecue and then went on a night ride. So that worked out really well. But I just, I don’t know. I liked it.

Gia – Oh, I did too. The morning that we left, though, that was a morning where there were like gremlins. We had all kinds of little issues that were like not anything major. It just was funny because we’re like, where is our head? We put the bikes on the back right before we had what was it? Put the tent down. Was that what we did? Well, I needed to get the battery pack out, the Expion360 (Use BROFESSOR10 to save 10%) so I could plug in the thing to suck the air out of the mattress. We didn’t suck the air out of the mattress so we couldn’t pull the tent all the way down. And so, we had to work on that. we realized the tent needs to come down before we put the bikes on the back. It was just a learning experience of what order things to be done in. And then you would set your shoes up by the car, and you were saying to yourself don’t forget your shoes, don’t forget your shoes. And we leave, we get to Rochefort to ride our bikes to the Big Oak, and you say, have you seen my shoes?

Joey – And I was like… No, I knew exactly what I had done ran right over our shoes.

Gia – I Was like, okay, we got to go get your shoes. Yeah, I’m turning back and go get him Oh was not a big deal at all because we’re only like fifteen minutes away. It wasn’t bad at all and he you were like, oh no, it’s okay. We can get them and I’m like let’s go. Let’s go get this.  So we went and got him and sure enough ran right over them but it was just little things like that of like figuring out like the Subaru and putting camp up and everything

Joey – yeah uh build a new when you start in something new and you figure out how to put everything up and take everything down it’s a whole new experience whole new learning experience and I tried to go too fast and I was ready to get on the trail ready to be riding my bike and I was like why can’t this stuff work why can’t I just get all this stuff working and I put something back and I’m like well I put that back now I got to take it back apart It was just a learning experience.

Gia – Yeah, it wasn’t bad. It was just, and, but I do the thing that I’m also really excited about the Subaru is I can do most of it myself. And that’s one thing, like when we were putting it out and packing it up, because Okie Overland is having a camp out, not this coming weekend, but next weekend that I, while you are hunting with your dad, I plan on going to, the camp out what is it at Byrd’s Adventure Center yeah and so I was like okay I need to like don’t just do everything like let me you know show me what to do like tell me what to do but give me a chance to do it because I’m going to have to do this by myself in a couple weeks and I’m a little nervous um because I don’t want to put anything up wrong or you know break anything but I don’t want that either. But the FJ, I can’t do it by myself. Like there’s no way I can pull the rooftop tent down and latch it by myself, but I can, the Subaru, I can put it up myself. I can put it down myself. I can run a stove. I can do the kitchen and everything, but FJ by myself, but the tent, I cannot do that by myself. It’s a little too much, a little too high, and a little too hard to pull everything down because of what we have packed in it. Yeah. But the Subaru, I can do. So, I’m excited. That gave me a chance to learn and practice and, you know, try it out.  Yes. Figure out what, like, the one thing we did notice that it has more, like, it seemed to have more condensation.

Joey – Well, and it won’t normally have that. At the Overland of America, it didn’t have that because it had all the windows open. When we were up there, we didn’t pack a heater. And so, without a heater, we had to sleep with almost all the windows closed. And so, our breathing and condensation inside, it got pretty wet. And when we got back to your mom’s, I had to open it back up, let it dry out.

Gia – But it was so dark. I mean, it was so dark. It was wonderful. That is one thing I love about the tent on the FJ. And on the Suburbs, how dark they get.

Joey – Yeah, that OVS Everest is all black material and it is so dark in there. It’s really comfortable sleep. We’ve been trying, speaking of Overland and stuff, we’ve been trying to figure out a good mattress for that.

Gia – The mattress, that’s the only thing. The mattress that comes with the Everest is a little too thin. Both of us, when we were sleeping at Overland of America, just noticed. We were like, I’m starting to feel the bottom of the tent. It’s a little too thin. So, we put an air mattress in that had the memory foam in. And it, but it doesn’t fit the tent exactly. And in order for the tent to close back down, you’ve got to make sure you have every bit of air sucked out of that for it to close down easily. So, we’re still kind of figuring out that mattress situation for what’s going to be the most, what’s going to fit in the tent and the tent will be easy to close, but also be really comfortable for us.

Joey – Yeah, that’s all part of it, just figuring it out. And we have found a mattress. We just got to save up and get it. And so, we’re going to do that here one of these days. But anyway, the backpacking trip was a success all the way around. Yeah, there were some there were some challenges, but we made it through it and we ended up making some great memories and just having a great time with that. I love the area, love the trail and just loved how we did it. So, I would like to go back and do it from start to finish one of these days. But that just gave me a little more confidence in being able to do that. Yeah. Just figure out the scene, you know?

Gia – Yeah. It’s like a good, like get your feet wet, taste it. You know, I think you’re joining a community or figuring something out, like just having a chance to kind of get your feet wet and see what it’s all about before. before having to…

Joey – I like to wade into the shallow end instead of jumping headfirst into the deep end. That’s kind of the way I like to do it. Anyway, but last week, this past weekend, we decided to get out and enjoy the fall a little bit. We have been… Not doing much hiking. Hiking has been one of the main things that we have done since we began our relationship. We actually met on a day that you were on a big hike with your niece. And so that’s kind of been one of the things we’ve done since day one. But we don’t do a whole lot of it in the summer. Now, this past summer, we did do some backpacking up in Michigan. But in Arkansas, that’s not one of the things that we do.

Gia – Yeah, but hiking in Arkansas in the summer, that doesn’t happen. No, it’s not fun. It’s not fun. We’ll do short ones at like Cadron Settlement or Lake Atlanta, which doesn’t really count as hiking, but yeah. Nice little walks.

Joey – But so, this past weekend, the weather was going to be nice. We wanted to get out early before it got up into the eighties. It was supposed to rain, but there was only like a twenty percent chance and it hadn’t rained in like eight weeks in Arkansas. So, I was like, it isn’t going to rain. And so, we went up to Petit Jean Mountain, which is where we met. And we did the Boy Scout Trail.

Gia – Because her name is Petit Jean. Where we met.

Joey – We named our dog PJ because of Petit Jean. And so, we went up to the Boy Scout Trail and decided to combine the Boy Scout Trail and the Seven Hollows Trail, which made it about eleven miles. And that was going to be our first hike of the season. And that’s a good one. That’s a long one. And I haven’t been on a pretty significant walk since I’ve injured this past summer in a motorcycle wreck. So, this was going to be a challenge. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was worried.

Gia – I was worried. We were lying in bed that the, that Friday night and both of us admitted to the other, I’m nervous. Like, and normally that is not something when we, the last time I was nervous hiking was when we, when we backpack Pictured Rocks, just because it was new and it was the longest bike backpacking that we’d done. Um, and you know, I was nervous then just wondering how’s and how’s my gear going to work and do we have everything that we need? But I was nervous and because I was, you know, it just been a while since we’ve done it.

Joey – Yeah, I was, I was nervous just because my foot was going to hurt. I knew my foot was going to hurt and just figuring out what to do to make my foot not hurt, was just going to be a challenge. We were going to end up doing the first couple of miles in the dark. because we wanted to get out of there by noon. You know getting staying on the trail foot hurting and things like that but we love this trail. I had never done this I’d never done the boy scout trail before but you had done it

Gia – I had I’ve done it that’s yeah like the day that we met is when I got with my niece Chloe and (PJ is in my lap if you can hear yeah here is it too loud no, she’s fine that’s okay because that’s all I hear), and that’s one of the things I told you as I was nervous because it’s a hard trail. It’s not the hardest. We’ve done harder ones, but it is, it’s not just a flat walk in the park. And then also the last time, the first time I did it, it got hot. It got into the nineties and it was hot and it’s hard. And I just remember like the last couple of miles just being, you know, uncomfortable and just being, just gearing up for like, okay, this is going to be hard, even, and I was in shape when I did it. It’s not like the difference is, oh, I was out of shape when I was in shape. No, I was in shape the first time I did it. And it still is, it still is difficult. And just realizing that’s part of this kind of adventure that you go on is that you sign up for stuff and you know, it’s good and it’s fun. And it’s this kind of wholesome enjoyment where you feel powerful at the end, but it’s hard. And so just reconciling yourself to your fate of like, there’s going to be discomfort and it’s going to be hard. You’re going to make it. It’s going to be okay. But there are going to be moments on the trail that you’re going to be like, I’m good. And I told you on the trail, I said, I’m going to be so glad when this is over.

Joey – Yeah, you did mention that. We go back to the car and you’re like, are you glad?

Gia – Yeah. I mean, I loved it. I had a great time, but it was hard. It is.

Joey – It was hard. It’s, you know, it’s not flat. There are some things you climb, some things you go down. A lot of rocks, a lot of roots. Oh, yeah. And, you know, it’s typical Arkansas. A lot of rocks, a lot of roots, but… The scenery is really good. We missed out on a little bit because we went in the dark on the, on some of the good parts. But when the sun started coming up, we got into the canyons right behind the lodge. And that was really nice. We got on the, right before we got on the Seven Hollows, it started to rain. Of course, I said, you know, it’s only a little bit of rain, but yeah, sure enough, it started raining, which that wasn’t bad. It was actually really enjoyable.

Gia – I enjoyed that.

Joey – If you haven’t done the Seven Hollows, it’s actually one of the most touted, highly touted Tim Ernst’s book. He really brags about it. The rock scenery is outrageously beautiful. And when you go in the spring, there’s a lot of water that you have to cross. There was not much water we had to cross because it was so dry. But there’s a couple of sketchy places if you do it. If you’re doing it counterclockwise. There’s a couple of sketchy places you have to go down. There’s a lot of slick rock. She did fall once.

Gia – I did fall.

Joey – Both the times we have done that trail together; you’ve fell in different places.

Gia – Okay, that time, this last time, I fell because we were going down sketchy places on a rock. And my foot hit a wet spot on a rock and just out from underneath me. The first time I fell was just because I didn’t lift my foot up high enough. Yeah. You tripped over a cross tie or something like that. Something. Tree root cross tie. I don’t know. But yeah, I biffed it. I biffed it. It’s a good trail, but Seven Hollows is beautiful, but it’s not beautiful because of the far out. You know, Petty Jean is known for so many views that you can either have of the mountains, the valleys, you know, the river, whatever. This, the views, it’s the bluffs. It’s the… You know, it’s a little bit different on Seven Hollows.

Joey – Yeah. It’s a really nice trail. And if you haven’t got that on your list, you need to put that on your list. It’s not in the same ballpark as like Eagle Rock Loop or anything like that. But it is a really nice trail if you wanted to get out there and do like five or six miles. And it is very popular. There is a lot of people that walk that park and just walk to the natural bridge and turn back because it’s like a little over a mile to get there and back. And so, there’s quite a few people there. And it’s right across the street from Bear Cave, which is extremely popular. A lot of kids there. And so, it’s one of those places where we didn’t see a single person for like the first eight and a half miles, almost nine miles.

Gia – We didn’t see any people until we got to Seven Hollows.

Joey – Not one until we got to Seven Hollows. It’s a really nice place. Of course, Petty Jean is the most popular state park in Arkansas. And plus, they were having a hot air balloon something. And it was Saturday. Very, very busy. Yeah. We didn’t see one hot air balloon. Not one.

Gia – No, I know. I was disappointed. I really wanted to see a hot air balloon. Disappointed. But it was funny. I have to tell you; it was my pride. So, by the time we got to Seven Hollows and we’re coming back and started running to a whole bunch of people, we had already been hiking ten miles. I’m not like we’d already been hiking quite a few miles. Yeah. And so, these people like we’re like, I mean, and they don’t realize. They were like, I like your trekking poles. I know. Okay. And plus, by that time when we started seeing people, because we got back to our car before noon. So, when we started and everybody that we passed is like, good morning, good morning. Because we’re passing people at like, you know, ten, eleven o’clock. Okay. And y’all, we’re looking, I’m looking rough. I mean, I love hiking, but after ten miles of hiking, up mountains, down, you know, down mountains, up mountains, all that, I’m not my, like, I’m glistening, but I’m, I look rough. Like, that’s actually one of the things. When I asked Joey, I’m like, what was your first impression of me when you met me? Because I just hiked this trail, and he’s like, you looked really hot and sweaty.

Joey – You were hot. Yeah. you look real like you look sweaty way it’s always so humbling

Gia – maybe I should ask what I look like on our second the second time you met me but anyway so these people were passing and they’ve only been hiking for maybe a mile half a mile like they just left their cars and we’re walking back and it’s a loop trail Seven Hollows is so it’s four and a half miles so even if you know even if we’d hike the entirety of the trail before we saw them it still looked like we’d only hide like maybe four miles with big packs on and I was looking rough I was my feet were dragging I was a little tired and because it is a hard you know it’s a tiring trail and ten miles is about this spot where if I haven’t stopped and we um if I haven’t stopped yet I need to stop I need to get a little I need to rest and make myself rest I need to make myself drink some water I need to make myself eat to get some calories in because I start dragging and then when i start dragging too much I’m not I’m not having fun it’s anyway but we’re passing these people and they’re all like fresh and we I’m looking like rough and I look like and I didn’t want him to think I’d only been like three miles yeah I was like I’m doing the boy scout trail yeah like they were like be safe and I’m like yeah I’ve been like doing the Boy Scout trail already like it was crying

Joey – we passed like seventy-year-old women that were out there and like beautiful morning isn’t it and we’re like oh my gosh we’ve been out here for six hours.

Gia – I know I didn’t want people to think that we’ve been out here for three miles and that’s what I look like I want them to realize I’ve hiked this whole like I started on the other side of Mather Lodge went across the mountain like It was awesome.

Joey – I loved it. And ever since then, my calves have been screaming about what in the world are you doing? You haven’t done this in a while. Why did you have to walk so far on the first time of the year? And so anyway, as much as we’ve been doing riding, walking, whatever, running even, it wasn’t anything compared to that. So, it’s nice to be able to throw something a little different in there. Our packs were right at about twelve pounds with food water and little extra clothes that was another reason we’re nervous because we weren’t expecting to see any water and that’s a lot like packing enough water for that long and just thinking that was another reason we want to hike early because we wanted to not be in it for the heat of the day because having yeah worrying about water and that was one thing both of us finished with plenty of water which I was grateful for it you know it didn’t mean that we carried more in our pack but

Gia – That was another reason we were nervous about the water situation.

Joey – It was nice. That trail is really slow because there’s no… We passed one guy that was running. I don’t know how he was trail running on that trail because of all the roots and the rocks. I really don’t understand how he was doing that. It wouldn’t be safe for ankles, I wouldn’t think.

Gia – It’s a slow trail. Yeah, on that, exactly. This idea of like, okay, like when I’m hiking, I can get three miles in.

Joey – That trail, it’s like two miles an hour, two and a half miles. Two miles an hour is pretty fast on that one.

Gia – Yeah, it’s just because you have to, for me especially, I feel like I have to look, I mean, at every footstep, like every footfall, like where’s my foot going? And especially it feels like that. like when you go down this, like, cause the bluffs, the really pretty bluffs when you’re doing it counterclockwise are the first thing that you encounter. And it doesn’t feel like the ground is as crazy then. And then you spot at the lower end of the loop where you go up and you’re hiking more on like bedrock, like the rock, you know, bedrock, but at the top of the mountain or whatever, and then it kind of descends. And that’s where I fell. Like when it descends down, And then from the… It feels like for the rest of the way up until about a half mile to the car, it is just… rock that is it’s not flat rock that you want it’s just like rock turn sight you know it’s just rocky so I especially on that part just have to really watch each foot and I just was you just get tired of having to be so careful and pick your way well at least I somebody else means you can’t go out there and do three and a half

Joey – Like I said, the guy who was trail running, I was shocked when he came up on us and he was running. I’m like, dude, I don’t know how you’re doing this because I’d turn and break an ankle and then a hundred yards. He’s probably doing what I used to do.

Gia – I only run when I see people.

Joey – No, he’s probably laying out there waiting for somebody to come get him. It’s been three days now. But anyway, it’s a good trail, but we’re preparing for fall. We’ve got a lot of things planned, and, and quite a few places that we want to go put the bike packs on there, put the backpacks on there and, and mix that in with our overlanding. And, it’s just a good way to do it. Good way to get out there. Good way to get some exercise, stay fit and stay healthy and, and just be in the outdoors. And that’s what we love to do. So, that’s what we did. And it was a good couple weekends in a row. And I really enjoy it. Now, this coming weekend, you’ve got a women’s retreat kind of planned. You’re going down to the spa city in Hot Springs. Girl’s trip.

Gia – Yeah, it’s my sister and… some friends, my niece. We’re going to have a little girl’s trip to Hot Springs.

Joey – I’m going to be working.

Gia – Staying on the lake. And then going to have some time. We heard that OakLawn has a new spa that we’re going to check out. Because, y’all, I like it all. I like the city. I like the country. I like the hiking. I like the biking. I like the indulgent, splurgy stuff, too. I can’t say even experience that I’ll say no to unless it involves a tight space, and then I’m out. I’m not. Exactly. No spelunking for me. Yeah. I’ve done it. I’ve done caves, and that was good. That was fun, and I’m done.

Joey – Well, that’ll be fun. And then the next weekend is the Okie Overland Campout at Byrd’s Adventure Center. And if you have a free weekend on the second weekend of November, hope you get out there and enjoy that and join us for that.

Gia – You’re going to be working this weekend and then you’re going to be hunting. Working, working, then hunting, working, then hunting. And then after that, it’s busy, busy, busy all the way till the end of the year. Pretty excited about some things.

Joey – Over Thanksgiving, we’re going to Albuquerque. Going to experience some Sandia Peak mountains there and a lot of good food. Over Christmas, we’re going to Big Bend again with Okie Overland and quite a few friends. We’ve already got our spots reserved on the South Rim and the East Rim for our backpacking trip there. And I think it’s going to be extremely fun. I think we’ve got some good trips coming up. So anyway, thank you for joining us on the Overland Podcast. On behalf of my wife, thank you for joining me.

Gia – Thank you for inviting me to join you, babe.

Joey – It was super fun and really good to sit and talk to you while you’re in the other room. So that’s always fun. Hope you have a wonderful week. Thank you for listening to the Overland Podcast. Make sure and check out www.ultralightsacks.com, the sponsor of this podcast. podcast, and we will be back same time, same channel next week, and we’d love to hear from you. Make sure and get on there and sign up for automatic updates when we do our podcast. You can follow us on any of the podcast platforms, and we would love for you to see you there. Until then, look out for number one and don’t step in number two. We’re out. Here we go. Boom. And… There we go.