Armchair Anonymous: Camping

Summary

Armchair Expert - Armchair Anonymous: Camping (June 12, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this lively episode of Armchair Anonymous, Dax Shepard and Monica Padman invite listeners to share their wildest, weirdest, and most harrowing camping stories. True to Armchair’s spirit, the focus is on vulnerability, humor, and celebrating the messy unpredictability of being human—especially in the great outdoors where plans and safety can unravel fast. Dax and Monica chat with anonymous callers from Canada, Texas, Greece, and British Columbia, delving into vivid tales of bear encounters, police chases, near-fatal accidents, and camping chaos involving s’mores, caves, marshmallow pokers, and more. Their signature banter brings levity and warmth, making for an episode that’s by turns hilarious, harrowing, and genuinely human.

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Key Discussion Points & Stories

1. Dax & Monica: Camping and Alcohol ([00:00]–[02:20])

• Dax muses about the true camping experience: “You unzip that thing in the morning, crawl out. You're like, oh, fuck, I just woke up in a plastic bag...Then you're like, oh, let's make some coffee. And then everything just starts getting better and better.” ([00:15])
• Monica is candid: camping is not her top activity, while Dax humorously maintains that drinking can massively enhance the camping experience, joking about laws against drinking while snowmobiling.
• Tone: Playful, self-deprecating, lightheartedly skeptical about the realities of camping.

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2. Caller #1: Emmy from Ontario, Canada — Bear Encounter at Grundy Lake ([03:56]–[16:17])

Story Highlights

• Emmy and her husband Nolan, experienced backcountry campers, go car camping at Grundy Lake and notice increased wildlife activity.
• While stargazing on a lakeside rock, they hear rustling; Nolan, always the “paranoid” camper (with axe and knife for protection), insists it’s something serious.
• Suddenly, a large black bear appears just a meter and a half away.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On facing the bear:
  Emmy: “I blacked out. I don't remember any of it. What Nolan says is that I stood up and, like, saw the bear. And then he said that it was like the roadrunner legs. He said that my feet went so fast and I just started sprinting as, like, fast as I could.” ([09:28])
• Dax: “You both triggered both of your instincts, which is—the bear just knows to chase anything that runs away from it. It doesn't even have to think about it.” ([10:37])
• Emmy describes how her husband did everything right—chased off the bear by clapping and yelling (“Whoa bear!”)—while she fled in sheer panic.
• They encounter more bears on their walk back and end up sleeping in their car, then abandoning the rest of their trip.

Aftermath

• Nolan is “vindicated” for years of anxious wildlife precautions, which annoys Emmy but gives him lifelong bragging rights.
• The story prompts a reflection on relationships and complementary personalities—her “flight” response, his “fight.”

Timestamps

• Bear encounter begins: [08:33]
• Emmy runs, Nolan intervenes: [09:28-10:50]
• Dax’s reflection on animal instincts and human reactions: [10:37-10:43]
• Packing up, seeing more bears: [11:43-12:17]
• Postscript on moose and brown bears: [14:07-15:11]

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3. Caller #2: Callie from Plano, Texas — Police Chase at Meramec Caverns ([17:13]–[33:02])

Story Highlights

• Callie, her husband, her brother (6’7”), and sister-in-law camp at Meramec Caverns, Missouri, en route to a St. Louis concert (with all four crammed into a Toyota Prius).
• In the dead of night, she and her anxiety-prone brother awaken to sirens, cars revving—it's a high-speed police chase barreling straight into the campground.
• The suspect, chased into the campground, flees on foot toward their tent; chaos erupts as the campers scramble for safety.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Callie: “Is that not a fucking police chase coming down the mountainside?” ([25:54])
• On the camp’s panicked escape:
  “It's an emasculating thing to hide in. It's like you're already hiding, but you're also hiding in a Prius.” – Dax ([28:13])
• Hiding in the freezing car, fogged windows, keys jammed under the tripod—pure horror-comedy until they finally escape.
• The next day, they learn the suspect was found in an empty campsite—possibly under a tent—“wearing nothing but boxer shorts.” ([31:48])

Timestamps

• Start of police chase: [23:46]
• Panicked flight to the car: [27:29-28:46]
• Aftermath and news story resolution: [31:24-32:05]

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4. Caller #3: Kevin from Crete (Originally Cincinnati, Ohio) — Cave Disaster in Kentucky ([35:06]–[45:44])

Story Highlights

• In 2003, 22-year-old Kevin joins a group of friends (including a new-to-camping girlfriend, Molly) for a hike into “Moonshiner’s Cave” at Red River Gorge.
• Cave adventure turns claustrophobic at “Fat Man’s Misery,” described as a “very narrow” crawl space.
• As they emerge toward daylight, they discover the only exit is a slippery 12-15ft vertical shaft.
• One by one, the group climbs out—until Molly slips and falls head-first down the shaft.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “Have you ever seen those, like, Nestea plunge commercials? ... She went straight down this hole. Head first.” – Kevin ([40:35])
• Dax: “Climbing out of a shaft is much easier than climbing down a shaft.” ([41:02])
• Miraculously, Molly is battered and bruised but OK. The group offers her the choice to go back through the cave or climb up again—she bravely chooses the latter.
• Molly breaks down in tears post-crisis; the group reflects on pure luck and how she almost certainly never camped (or dated Josh) again.

Timestamps

• Cave entry, “Fat Man’s Misery”: [36:38-39:20]
• Molly’s fall: [40:07-41:24]
• Aftermath and group reaction: [41:55-44:08]

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5. Caller #4: Anna from Vancouver Island, BC — S’mores Poker to the Eye ([46:00]–[59:09])

Story Highlights

• Anna recounts a recent family camping trip with her husband, two kids, and a dog.
• Her son, Brenner (9), accidentally burns himself by putting a hot, metal s’mores stick into his eye while trying to clean marshmallow residue by the campfire.
• Initial chaos (“They grab cell phone flashlights... pour in some cold water...” [50:30]) gives way to controlled crisis mode from Anna, who is used to her son’s numerous injuries (“Ok, that’s glue. Those are stitches. Here’s where we’re at.” [49:12]).
• The next morning: “There's this white line right down the center of his eyeball. The color, the pupil, everything. And he looks like this insane snake.” ([52:45])

Resolution

• Anna rushes her son to the ER, remaining calm while internally panicked. Thankfully, he only sustained a shallow corneal burn and cheek burn. After resting and treatment, he insists on returning to his baseball team’s tournament—eye patched, head wrapped, and cheered on by teammates.
• He goes on to play in the final game, scoring an in-park home run!
• Family is nicknamed “the chaos crew” for their many injury stories (dog bites, head wounds, etc.), but Anna’s practical, maternal resilience shines.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Dax (on the hot poker): “This is like a torture scene in a kidnapping movie, right?” ([50:14])
• Anna (seeing her son’s eye): “I almost throw up, but have to shove every single part of that.” ([52:54])
• Brenner’s attitude: cool-headed, more embarrassed than distressed.
• Dax shares his own corneal burn story from a cigarette accident (“I flicked it and it went straight up...went straight into my eye.” [59:10])

Timestamps

• Accident and triage: [49:11-53:42]
• Emergency room and recovery: [54:47-57:43]
• Return to baseball, home run, aftercare, and photos: [57:43-59:09]

---

Notable Quotes

• On instinctive panic:
  “You don't know how you're gonna react in any of these situations until you're in them.” — Dax ([10:09])

• On camping and relationships:
  “If my response is flight, his is definitely fight.” — Emmy ([13:15])

• On unlucky camping discoveries:
  “He was found in an empty campsite under a tent wearing nothing but boxer shorts.” — Callie ([31:48])

• On improbable survival:
  “It was a miracle.” — Kevin ([43:14])

• On parenting in crisis:
  “I have to be the one who digs deep and deal with it later.” — Anna ([54:03])

---

Summary Table: Callers & Tales

| Time | Caller (Location) | Story Focus | Key Event | |--------------|---------------------|------------------------------------|----------------------------------| | 03:56–16:17 | Emmy (Ontario, CA) | Bear encounter | Bear chases her; Nolan saves day | | 17:13–33:02 | Callie (TX/OK) | Police chase at campground | Campers flee from suspect chase | | 35:06–45:44 | Kevin (Crete/OH) | Cave accident in Kentucky | Molly falls down vertical shaft | | 46:00–59:09 | Anna (Vancouver BC) | S’mores poker burns son’s cornea | Hospital trip—then home run! |

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Tone & Takeaways

• The episode mixes humor and anxiety, blending storytelling with practical lessons (don’t run from bears, stash marshmallow sticks safely, calm panic with action).
• Dax and Monica bring out honest, raw recollections, emphasizing quick, instinctive parenting, the randomness of wilderness danger, and the rewards—and potential calamities—of getting out of your comfort zone.

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Final Thoughts

Listeners walk away reminded of the unpredictable beauty and peril of the outdoors, inspired by resilience and quick thinking in chaos. Whether you love or hate camping, you’ll find yourself laughing, cringing, and maybe re-reading bear safety guidelines—or putting that old tent up—after this episode.

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Note: All advertisements and non-content material have been omitted for clarity and summary focus.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

Your favorite topic, your favorite activity. Camping.

[B]

I don't love it.

[A]

Yeah, I need to go in a tent. The bus life is fun. But having this prompt made me realize, no, I need to unzip that thing in the morning, crawl out. You're like, oh, fuck, I just woke up in a plastic bag. But then you're like, oh, let's make some coffee. And then everything just starts getting better and better.

[B]

Now, have you gone tent camping since you stopped.

[C]

Stop drinking?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You have?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Oh, nice. Okay.

[A]

Not a ton. You're right. Drinking helps camping so much. It helps someone's one of those activities where it's like, is there an activity of drinking? Like snowmobiling? They tried to crack down on drinking and riding snowmobiles in the northern Michigan and Wisconsin. I'm like, guys, you're not gonna have an activity.

[B]

It's all connective.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[C]

Hi.

[A]

How are you?

[D]

I'm great. How are you guys?

[A]

Good. Where are you at?

[D]

I'm in Ontario.

[C]

Canada.

[A]

Beautiful. London. Toronto. Where are we at?

[D]

I live in Orangeville. It's just a small town, maybe an hour and a half north of Toronto

[A]

en route to Muskoka.

[D]

Kind of a bypass, but, yeah, it's sort of on the way.

[A]

Okay. And have you spent any time on those lakes?

[D]

Yeah, we've been up there a few times. Camping. Topical. Camping, camping.

[A]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

[D]

Yeah, I have friends with cottages up in that area too, so, yeah, I spent a lot of time up there.

[A]

Yeah, you Canadians got that figured out. Lake life. So where does your camping story take place? Tell us.

[D]

My camping story takes place in Grundy Lake. It's an Ontario Provincial park. That's maybe two hours north of Muskoka. It's a little ways up. This takes place around 15 years ago. So my husband, then boyfriend, in June will have been together for 18 years.

[A]

Congrats. You seem very young to have been with someone for 18 years.

[B]

I agree.

[D]

I get that a lot. We started dating when I was 17. Our wedding anniversary is January 2nd.

[A]

Oh, that's a peculiar day to get married.

[B]

No, I like it.

[D]

We were gonna try and do a new Year's wedding. But nobody would take us. Cause they're all booked up. So we were like, well, the second is a Saturday. So as much as I feel like you complain about people not loving your birthday, like, we made people go to a wedding on January.

[A]

Yeah. After they just quit drinking.

[B]

But I love that because then it's like we're starting off the year with a party.

[A]

That's nice.

[C]

And love.

[B]

That's nice. Cause beginning of January can be tough mentally.

[A]

Well, also, if one of your resolutions is, like, get married, you knock that out on day two.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

His name's Nolan. So when we met, he was super into camping. I had done some trips, but not a ton, so he really got me into it. He was more of like a portage guy.

[A]

Is that with canoeing? Yeah.

[D]

And, like, you would put all your food in a barrel and you have your backpack and you canoe in.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Cool.

[D]

Kia and I had done a couple of trips, like, in Algonquin. And we had done things like that before, but in this particular case, we were going to Grundy. So it's car camping. So you would drive up and park your car on the site. Right. And you set up your tent, and away you go. So we were used to food barrel. String up your stuff in a tree. Absolutely isolate everything from animals. Because when you're further north, you have to worry more about the wildlife. So we were kind of more in line with that. But then when you go car camping, you're basically only as tidy as your nearest neighbor. So you can't do a whole heck of a lot there. We've been camping and we've seen, like, raccoons eating hot dogs at the picnic

[B]

table next to the.

[A]

Sure, sure, sure. You're describing Michigan camping perfectly. We always drive right to the spot. You wake up, there's raccoons everywhere. There's empty bags from the hot dog buns that they got into.

[D]

Exactly. So in this particular case, we were there for a couple days, and it was really beautiful. We hadn't been there yet, and lots of really great hiking, amazing swimming. It was like really typical Canadian Shield group of seven painting. It was so beautiful. We had done a lot of hiking, and we had noticed a lot more animal sign than we had expected, given that it was a car campsite.

[A]

What kind of animals are up there? What do we gotta be nervous about?

[D]

Not so much moose in that area, but you'd be more thinking about bears.

[A]

No. Wolves?

[D]

I don't think so. Maybe, like, there's tons of coyotes around here, but they're not really gonna do much.

[A]

Right. Although we did hear that crazy coyote story. You know, it was in Toronto or suburb.

[B]

The lady got killed.

[E]

What?

[A]

It was like some kind of weird hybrid, wasn't it? Of a coyote. Wolf coyote. It was like a wolf coyote.

[B]

That was the story we hear. Is that what you're talking about?

[A]

It was an armchair anonymous.

[B]

Oh, I know. But then also we looked up a coyote did kill some once.

[A]

Oh, one time in the history of coyotes in California. The person might have already been dead.

[D]

But anyways, anyhow, they eat a lot of dogs. Like if you have your dog in your backyard around here, you have to

[C]

be careful, stuff like that.

[D]

But yeah, it was one particular day, we had already been there a bit and it had been raining all day. And so we were kind of cooped up under our tarp and then it cleared up and we thought, okay, let's go down to the water, let's enjoy the scenery. It was a gorgeous sunset. We wanted to watch the stars because there's no light pollution in that area. So we went down to the beach area just by our campsite and we were kind of hanging on this rock and it was this like big kind of sweeping rock that went down into the water. Scenery all around and it was gorgeous. And then at one point while we were laying there, we could kind of hear some rustling in the bushes beside us. Nolan was like, what was that? And he was kind of freaking out about it. I should tell you too, he's insufferable when it comes to like camping and wildlife. Whenever we would go places, he would sleep with a 12 inch knife. He would have like an axe in case like something happened.

[A]

Borderline paranoid, definitely.

[E]

100%, yeah.

[A]

Okay, not even borderline.

[B]

Yeah, but he likes it, which is interesting.

[D]

I know, it's like he wants it. So I just was like, shh, it's nothing, leave it alone. And then it's kind of wrestling a bit more and he's like, no, em. Like I think that's actually properly something. And I'm like, you need to relax and chill cause you're ruining my experience. Stop it. And so at some point he goes stand up. And like before I could even really react, he had like grabbed me by the scruff of my back and had like hoisted me up to a standing position. And I kind of looked over and a meter and a half away from in the bush is this huge bear.

[E]

Oh no.

[A]

And Monica meter is 3ft. That's the length of our coffee table here. No, describe for Me how big this bear is.

[B]

What color?

[D]

Black bear. It was not small.

[A]

Bigger than a Newfoundland.

[D]

Oh, definitely. Yeah, 100%.

[A]

Okay, great. So a Newfoundland's a 200 pound dog. Monica. Okay, Monica, just so you know. Yeah.

[E]

Do you know?

[A]

How about weights and measures?

[D]

Dax is an honorary Canadian. Anyway, so the rest of the story, it has to be from his point of view because, honestly, I blacked out. I don't remember any of it. What Nolan says is that I stood up and, like, saw the bear. And then he said that it was like the roadrunner legs. He said that my feet went so fast and I just started sprinting as, like, fast as I could.

[A]

Big.

[B]

No, no, you're supposed to play dead or something.

[A]

Do you know what running is, Monica? When you sprint away from something?

[B]

Teach me.

[D]

You're not supposed to do that. And that's exactly what I did. I knew not to do that. I've watched Bear Girls and, like, I know about these things and I had been camping and I knew that. But, like, my flight response.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes your body takes over.

[B]

Who can be thinking in those moments?

[A]

You don't know how you're gonna react in any of these situations until you're in them. You think you can model it out and then you gotta be in them.

[F]

Ugh.

[D]

I ran. And then. Because I ran, the bear was chasing me.

[E]

Yes.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[D]

And then Nolan started chasing the bear.

[A]

Oh, Jesus.

[D]

And was, like, trying to, like, get

[B]

it to, like, start off the cartoon.

[D]

I know he, like, threw some stuff on it, and he eventually kind of got in between me and the bear and he started doing what you're supposed to do, which was clapping and like, whoa, bear. And it stopped. I don't think it wanted to eat me. We probably startled it again.

[A]

You both triggered both of your instincts, which is the bear just knows to chase anything that runs away from it. It doesn't even have to think about it.

[D]

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I just went sprinting and it chased. So it stopped. And then Nolan chased it back.

[B]

I don't know how he did this.

[D]

He was just waiting for his opportunity. Like he was ready.

[A]

This is what I'm always training for, Monica.

[B]

Oh, my God. Do you think he, like, paid for this? Like, this is a service

[A]

platinum experience.

[D]

So, yeah, I chased it up the tree and it was kind of hanging up there. And then the first thing that I actually remember was that he grabbed my forearm and he was like, stop running. He grabbed me to stop. And then I saw the bear. My legs turned to jello and I fell over. Cause I was, like, so over adrenalized. Yeah, it was freaky. So the bear went back up the tree, and then we were like, okay, we gotta get back to our campsite. But now this bear is up in the tree that we need to pass to get back to our campsite.

[A]

Oh, boy.

[D]

And we're like, well, it chased me once. I don't know, maybe it'll chase me again. So we just backtracked basically around the other way to get back to the campsite and thinking, you know, okay, we'll go back. But then on our way back, we saw two more be.

[C]

Jesus Christ.

[D]

One was further up on the trail, and it kind of scooted across in front of us. And then we saw another one, like, in the periphery of a campsite. So we're like, we're out. We're not doing this anymore. So we got back to the site, and we packed up our sleeping bags, and we just slept in the Rav 4 that night. Because we were like, I'm not sleeping inside anymore. We packed up and we drove home. I think we had another night we were supposed to spend. And we were like, no, it's not happening. We're not doing it.

[A]

Nolan had fulfilled his fantasies. Like, I don't need round two of this. I've got enough to brag about. I don't need to press my luck.

[D]

Well, that's exactly it. For years and years and years, he was, like, insufferable, and he was so annoying. And we would be like, stop. And he got vindicated in it, which is so annoying.

[A]

Yeah, he's got the leverage now for life, probably.

[B]

Well, for a little bit, a couple years.

[D]

He was even remarking how the couple nights before, as we were walking back, he was like, I told you that I heard something. And, like, that was probably a bear.

[B]

And I'm like, okay, I kind of understand that. Because then he had to get in the middle. He almost got mauled.

[A]

I gotta applaud Nolan when he was met with this situation. And by the way, I would argue his response was probably heavily weighted by you being there him on his own. I don't know that he exhibits this kind of chasing a bear.

[D]

He's pretty intense like that. Like, we've had situations where, like, not necessarily same animals. Like, if a dog is running in the park towards him, he's like, yeah, I'll just put up my foot and kick. Like, he's not the kind of guy who would run away. If my response is flight, his is definitely fight.

[A]

Ah, that's a good pair.

[B]

Exactly. That is a good pair.

[A]

You found each other.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. So I left him to die. Did anybody think about him for one second?

[B]

When you walked back and you walked by the other two bears, like, you just walked right by it.

[D]

Well, we were sketchy about it, but the one that we saw, like we were walking and it just like skirted across the trail and we're like, well, the whole thing was very heightened. I've talked to people who go there all the time and they're like, I have no idea what you're talking about. We've never really encountered. And it definitely is bear country and they're probably super used to humans, especially in that general area. But we have not been back.

[A]

Well, listen, if it had been a brown bear, we're not talking to Emmy, right? Yeah. Remember the brown bear story? That guy was hunting moose. And those things are fucking gnarly.

[D]

I think there are brown bears in Ontario. I think you have to go a lot further north to really get involved with them. They're definitely around here. Like, they're not far from where I live either, but they're not coming into where people are.

[A]

Yeah, I saw footage on Instagram two days ago, pretty certain it wasn't AI. Yeah, there's a guy in a four wheeler driving down a trail and he came around a corner. There's this two fucking brown bears, like 1200 pounders. The way they ran right up to the four wheeler and hit it and then backed up. It was the scariest approach I've ever seen. Like, the way they run when you're looking at them is fucking terrifying.

[E]

Oh, yeah.

[D]

I wouldn't go anywhere where there's brown bears. We've had lots of moose encounter in like Algonquin and they're pretty chill if you don't get in their way.

[A]

They're dangerous moose, but not intentionally, Right. They don't see you until they're on top of you.

[D]

We did get trapped one time in like a river inlet. Cause there was a mom moose and like a baby on either side. And we had to just hang out there for like an hour because, like, you wouldn't cut them off, right?

[C]

Yeah. Oh, my God.

[B]

I don't know enough. And like, ugh.

[A]

And Monica, have you ever seen a moose in real life?

[B]

I feel like it.

[A]

They're impossibly big. They're so tall.

[D]

Yeah. They'll be standing in the water and you see them and then they kind of come out on the bank and you're like, oh, my gosh, they're 12ft

[A]

tall and I think they can get up to £1,800. I told you this story where Uncle Grandpa and I, Tom Hann, and we're in his backyard in Wyoming and we're just shooting the shit and we're letting the dogs out and there's only like 8ft between him and the lake behind him. And he's facing me and it's night and then all of a sudden just the whole background behind him changes to black and a moose is running through the backyard and just went between the gap of him and the lake. Tom's like, oh my God, what was that? And I'm like, dude, a fucking bull just ran behind you. You were almost gone. Let's go camping.

[B]

I'm good.

[D]

We still camp all the time. We're super pro camping. We have a five year old and we take him out. He loves it. But we definitely don't go to those areas because I think Nolan wouldn't sleep at all.

[A]

He'd have to have a machine gun with him or something. And doing the canoeing still, the portage,

[D]

gosh, we haven't done that for years and years and years. It's kind of one of those things where the joy in it is maybe the peace and the tranquility. Some people go hard, but with a five year old, it kind of sounds like my worst nightmare.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. Was really lovely meeting you.

[D]

Lovely to talk to you guys too. Thanks a lot for hearing my story.

[A]

Yeah, tell Nolan we say thanks for his role in this because without him we have no account of what the fuck you did.

[D]

He's the best.

[A]

We love him. All right, take care. Oh, my God, your best friend's calling.

[B]

Callie. Yeah, maybe it's about a time she

[A]

saw Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

[B]

It kept it quiet until now.

[A]

Cali.

[E]

I am Cali.

[B]

Yes, Cali is an important name to me. My best friend's name is Cali.

[E]

Spelled the same.

[B]

No, she spells with a K. Understood.

[A]

Have you met a lot of Cali's in your travels?

[E]

I have not met a lot of Cali's, but people do like to say like California, what is it short for? Or they tell me that they had a cat when they were a kid named Cali. Every time I say, well, was it a calico cat? And the answer is always yes.

[A]

And where are you, Callie?

[E]

I am in Plano, Texas. I guess we call it a suburb of Dallas, but it feels like it has all the things. It's grown so much.

[A]

I was There last year with my best friend, Aaron Weekley, at a Sprouts or a Total Wine.

[E]

We have both of those. I'm telling you, we have everything.

[A]

Yeah, Plano's where it's at.

[E]

So Plano, Texas, that's not where the story takes place. So October 2014, my husband and I had been married about a year and a half at this time living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And my older brother and sister in law, who lived in Oklahoma City, they decided along with us to buy tickets to a concert in St. Louis. And we were going to make like a whole road trip of it. But being the young, not wealthy, poor married couples that we were, we decided we would go camping for the first night to, like, save on the hotel room. So we had figured out campgrounds at the Meramac Caverns in Missouri about an hour outside of St. Louis. And so we kind of picked that place out ahead of time. And we all packed into our 2007 Toyota Prius that we had at the time. Feel like it's worth a small pause because I just want to put in the detail that my brother is like 6 foot 7. And so I just want you to get the full picture of four grown adults in the Prius for six hours

[A]

with camping gear as well.

[E]

Yes, of course.

[A]

We get support from Helix. I have to say, the Helix is the greatest mattress. First of all, the way it just gets shipped to your house, it's so easy. You're not going to a store. The fact that you can pick out your sleep temp to match you. Yes. It's so customizable and so darn comfortable.

[B]

I've had a Helix mattress for years now. A long time.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And it has really held up. It's still so comfortable. Still matches my exact needs. I'm a side sleeper.

[A]

I'm all over the map in Nashville. I have the midnight Lux when I'm going to Nashville. I look forward to sleeping on that bed. And that's the thing about Helix. It's not just comfortable on night one. It stays that way. They have over 20 models, so you're not just picking a mattress off a shelf. You're matching to how you actually sleep. Side sleeper, hot sleeper, bad back. Whatever it is, there's a specific model built for that.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. And you know what is amazing is they now have cooling upgrades going into summer if you run hot at night. That is such a game changer. I have started running hot at night.

[A]

Yeah. As you get older.

[B]

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[A]

It's really one of those things where you don't realize how much better sleep can be until you're actually getting it consistently. Go to helixsleep.comarmchair for 20% off. That's helixsleep.com armchair for 20% off. Helixsleep.com armchair this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Summer's one of those seasons where there's this pressure to be on all the time. Say yes to everything, pack the calendar, and then you end up more burnt out than when it started.

[B]

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[B]

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[A]

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[A]

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[B]

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[E]

So we made it to the Meramec caverns and had a short hike, ate over the fire. We're up late talking and drinking around the fire. At some point my sister in law and I decided that we were tired. So we went into the tent. Like this is very legitimate tent camping. We're not in a cabin or an rv. It's not glamping.

[A]

Do you have two two man tents or do you have one four person tent?

[E]

I have one four person, which again, sort of like the Toyota Prius. It's like you can fit four people and zero other things and you must lay very near each other. My sister in law and I go to bed and we leave my brother and husband up finishing visiting. And this is 2014 after all. So none of us have really great cameras on our phones, but many of us have bought a Canon and believe that they are professional photographers. Oh yeah, they're up late and they have their telescope and their time lapse and they're looking at the stars and trying to take amazing photos.

[A]

They're nerdy now.

[E]

Yeah, they're having their astronomy course out there and we are already passed out in the tent. At some point in the night they get tired and also come to the tent and go to sleep. And then I don't know what time it is. Now I happen to know it was around 2am but at the time I don't know what time it is. I just know that I wake up to a sound. Something to also pause on is my older brother and I have sort of similar personalities and that there's a bit of like anxiety mixed in there, like a heightened awareness of danger. And so I wake up and I hear a sound that I realize is sirens in the distance. And so I'm awake and I see that across the tent my brother and my sister in law and my husband, they're all still asleep. So I sit up and the sirens are kind of getting louder. And this campground where we are at is actually, I don't know if we can call it a mountain. It's probably like some kind of foothills. Okay. I don't know the geography of Missouri super well, but there's a mountain esque thing and you're going down switchbacks. So sure. We're familiar with like you don't just go straight down a mountain. You're doing the back and forth to kind of cut the elevation easily. And so I start hearing sirens, but also there's like an engine, but it's not a constant engine. It's like revving, like it's really loud. And then it cuts. And I realized that it's like somebody driving very quickly down these switchbacks and they're revving the engine every time they make it around one of the turns. At this point I sort of notice that my brother is awake and I hear that it sounds like there's two engines and there's sirens. And so I look up to my brother. We're both sitting up now. Of course, our spouses, they are more of the balance us out type. I can't say that my husband is laid back in any way because that is certainly not the case. But definitely not jumping to the worst case scenario the way my brother and I are. So we happen to be the ones that are awake, my brother and I. And I looked at him and I said, is that not a fucking police chase coming down the mountainside?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[E]

He starts looking out the little netted windows. Kind of a foggy night this night. But we've got headlights and we've got flashing police lights he's seen. And so we start to wake up my husband and sister in law. And the way that this campground is set up is it's down these switchbacks and when you get to the bottom of the switchbacks, it's just simple state campgrounds. And so there's like a gravel oval and tent spots and there's RV spots. We happen to be the only ones that were tent camping. It wasn't super busy. And there was a couple of RVs like a little further away from us. The Meramec river is just maybe about 15 or 20 yards from our tent. Like it's just right over there and you can hear the water trickling all through the night. And so these headlights are coming down. When they get down there, all there is is the campground. That's the only thing the road leads to. And so, okay, I think it's time to wake them up. So we go to wake them up. Their first thing is doubt. Like, oh sure guys, I'm sure it is definitely a police chase coming down the mountain because y' all don't tend to jump to these worst case scenarios or anything. So they were kind of doubting. And then about that time, the car is now in the campground police Cars chasing it. My brother has fully stepped out of the tent at this time and is like watching it and he's like, guys, we gotta go down past the RVs. The police chase has ended now. Then we've got more deputies like showing up. They've turned their sirens off, there's lots of shouting. And it is at this time that it becomes very evident that we have a foot chase on our hands.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[E]

We don't know what this person has done. We just know that they've been chased directly down the way from us. So we decide that we need to get in the car and we need to get in the car quickly. And so we're trying to hurry, get our shoes on and everything. About the time that all four of us are outside of the. You can hear splashing in the water. And this is the river that has been completely calm. Just like a peaceful triple all night is suddenly splashing. And so we're like, oh my gosh,

[C]

he's in the water. He's just right there. He's in the water.

[E]

And of course you're not thinking that it's a drunk driver, you're thinking that this is a hardened violence criminal fleeing a murder scene. Yes, absolutely. We are now really trying to get to the car and we all get in the and lock the doors and my husband turns it on and hits the gas.

[A]

It's an emasculating thing to hide in. It's like you're already hiding, but you're also hiding in a Prius.

[E]

So all of us are in the prison. He's hadios and nothing's happening. And so this is like exactly like a scary movie at this point. You're all completely screaming. The fog has set in, so the headlights are putting in fog. I don't know the science behind it, but the air outside is chilly and there's four big upset, heavy breathing individuals in the car. And so the windows are fogging on the inside.

[C]

Jesus Christ. We can't see anything.

[E]

Why is the car not working? It felt long, of course, but probably like 40 seconds of this. Like he doesn't know what's wrong. He reaches down and he finds that the tripod from them being professional photographers the night before, he had put it in the car before he went to bed, put the camera and the tripod away and it was on the floorboard of the driver's feet and it was up against the brake. Well, since this was a Toyota Prius, you're not hearing an engine revving and thinking, oh, something must be on the brake, nothing's happening. Like, the electric engine isn't engaging because the brake is fully pressured.

[A]

Also, you gotta push the brake to turn it on, maybe even too. I think with the Prius, you gotta, like, have your foot. The brakes gotta be depressed for the engine to turn on.

[E]

If we weren't in a panicked moment, perhaps he'd noticed the tripod all along, trying to put his feet down there. But so after, like, 45 seconds, finally he rips that thing. And we decide like. Like, okay, we just need to leave the campgrounds for now. And on our way out of, like, the gate, we tell the police. Hey. Because they set up, like, a checkpoint and everything. Hey. We think he was in the river, like, right by our tent over there. And we just drive on up the switchbacks out of the mountain. On our way up, we pass a fire department truck that's pulling a boat on a trailer because they're about to start their water search.

[A]

Oh, this is great.

[E]

We have left our tent and our bags and all. All of our gear that's, like, around the fire. We've left everything and driven back up to, like, the nearest town, like, 15 minutes. Probably got some terrible motel and just kind of, like, woke up in disbelief the next morning and drove down there, and there was no sign of anything. Everything looked peaceful and normal. And we packed up our stuff and drove on to St. Louis and had our weekend. It was a Sunday night concert. So I went to the concert. And then I think it was at some point night, on the drive back, or maybe like the day after we got back, we should look up and see, like, if there was a news story, figure out what actually happens. There was no sign of anything, and the guy was not a violent criminal. They apparently just refused to stop for a traffic stop earlier in the night. And then they crossed counties, and you know how it is out there. You lose your jurisdiction. And so that one deputy had let him go, and then somebody else tried to stop him later in the night because they had heard the call from earlier, and that's where that chase started. And they just had multiple traffic violations. I don't. A lot more trouble afterwards, but no reason to be running.

[A]

Well, I would just think if he already has three DUIs and he's not supposed to be driving, you're looking at prison time. You're like, well, if they don't catch me, they don't know who was driving the car. I mean, you make a lot of smart decisions in that moment.

[E]

There's a lot of reasons, but Point being, there was not really a crime listed other than, like, resisting arrest, but he was found in an empty campsite under a tent wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Wait, what?

[E]

There's been a lot of debate through the years of, like, was it under a tent? Was it under the COVID of a tent? Does that mean that he was in our tent? Should we be concerned that he was in one of our sleeping bags, or was he, like, clean the tarp in the ground?

[B]

I feel like that, like, I feel like he was under the entire tent.

[A]

He just dove under to get a good hiding spot. Lot, actually.

[F]

Yeah.

[E]

He must have not dug out enough or something, because somehow they found him.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Wow.

[E]

That's our camping story.

[A]

Oh, wow. Have you done much camping since then?

[E]

I have three little kids, so I'm kind of in, like, a hiatus from camping. My husband does take our two older kids. Once the baby gets older, then I think I'll be back to camping. But, yes, we continue to camp after that and even have had a couple of family camping trips, but I'm taking a break from it because it's too much chaos. Yeah.

[A]

It's a lot to keep your eye on. It does make me crave camping, being next to a river, hearing it.

[B]

Babbling Brooks.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Some police sirens, some maniacs, some peaceful police sirens. The guy with nothing to lose.

[B]

Wow. That's wild.

[A]

Yeah. Well, Callie, that's wonderful. I mean, not for you, but for us.

[E]

Thank you guys for having me. And hopefully y' all get lots of good ones for this one.

[A]

Yeah. Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Hi, Kevin. Hi.

[F]

How are you?

[A]

I'm wonderful. How are you?

[F]

I'm probably the most nervous I've ever been.

[A]

Oh, my goodness.

[F]

I've been inside house fires before, so that says a lot.

[A]

Yay.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

We're flattered, but you should not be nervous.

[A]

No. There's nothing intimidating about Monica or me.

[B]

Well, I'm scary.

[F]

It's definitely calming me down, so it's good.

[A]

Where are you, Kevin?

[F]

I live in Crete, Greece. In the Mediterranean.

[A]

You're lying. How does an American. And up in Crete?

[F]

I'm the safety director for a Navy base out here. For a U.S. navy base.

[A]

Oh, you are? Have you guys been busier than normal?

[F]

You know, I thought you were going to ask that. And business has picked up a little bit. We're doing good. We're staying safe out here.

[B]

Okay, good.

[A]

How long have you been in Crete?

[F]

This is our second time living here, but I've been here recently for about two years before that we were in Okinawa, Japan. We like to travel, we like to get out and move around.

[A]

You're seeing it say we. You have a wife and some kids. Is that what's happening?

[F]

Yeah, I've got a wife and we've got six kids. Three of them are a little bit older.

[B]

Oh, man, what a life you guys are living. This is awesome.

[A]

Six kids. How are they liking that adventure?

[F]

My 17 year old son is kind of ready to be done with it. He's sick of moving his room around. The younger two that are with us now, they enjoy it. They get a lot of good opportunities, man. A lot of things that people normally don't get to see.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Shaquille o' Neal was discovered on a military base, if you recall that story, Monica. Yeah. Maybe he'll discovered by a visiting coach. We'll see.

[F]

My kids are very unathletic, so.

[A]

Yeah, they need statisticians.

[B]

Yeah. Maybe it'll be a math coach or something that comes.

[F]

Maybe biology, I think is where we're going.

[B]

Okay, great.

[A]

And is your wife also enlisted?

[F]

No, I'm actually a civilian. I'm not in the military. And she's got the hard job. She's been homeschooling these kids for past 10 years.

[B]

That's hard.

[F]

She's living her best life out here in Crete, though.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

You have a camping store story.

[F]

Yes. So this takes place long time ago, 2003. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. I see you, Monica. Cedar Point, Kings Island.

[A]

Cedar Point. You were very close to Kings Island.

[B]

Let's get it out now.

[F]

Very close. We got it out.

[A]

Yeah. The Beast.

[F]

The beast, yeah. Of course, the beast thing will break your neck. So we would typically go down to Red River Gorge to go camping.

[A]

Is that in Kentucky?

[F]

Yes, probably like southeast of Lexington. Beautiful place. Lots of like old like sandstone arches everywhere. Lots of good hiking. So we'd probably been down there 10 times by this point. And there was a group of us, I want to say there was eight or nine of us. Good mixture of guys and girls.

[A]

What age were you at this time?

[F]

I was 22. My buddy Josh, he had just been dating this girl for I think two or three weeks. And she gracefully said, I'll go camping with you guys. None of us had really ever met her before.

[A]

It's a lot because by the way, I've been in this exact situation. She's joining a group that's already done this a million times, right?

[F]

Yes.

[B]

Good for her to tough.

[F]

The first look we got of her, she did not look like she was an avid camper.

[E]

Okay.

[F]

Already she was a little out of place. So we get down there Friday, everything's good. You know, it's usually cooler, full of beer, fire, sit around, tell stories, get up Saturday morning and go on a hike, try to look for some new stuff. So we're out. We're all doing our thing, hiking, having a fun time, and we run into this other group of hikers, and we start talking, and they start telling us about this cave that they had just been to. We're like, this checks out.

[A]

We'll go.

[F]

So this is something, I believe they called it moonshiners cave, if that tells you anything. Some stuff was going on there at some point. So we get on the trail, we find this place, and it's got this low opening, and we've got our flashlights with us. And the guy had told us that we can go all the way through it. There's an opening, go out the opening and come back around the end. So we're going through. It's pretty dark. It's caving. Guys are trying to be macho. Girls are not liking it, but they're

[A]

putting up when they're stuck. Yeah.

[F]

Yes. They're stuck. They don't want to go back. It's pretty dark.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Yeah. And Wabi Wob is not trying to spend 40 hours figuring out web design.

[B]

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[A]

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[F]

We get to this point called, like, Fat Man's Misery, Something like that.

[A]

I hate it.

[F]

No, no, Very narrow.

[A]

You've just stumbled into one of my

[F]

great fears, which is claustrophobia.

[A]

Yes. When I see speed lunking, I'm like, what the is wrong with you that you would enjoy that?

[F]

I don't know. Some people love that stuff.

[A]

Yeah, they do. They do. Good for them.

[F]

Our group was half and half. Half of us liked it. The other half is not too happy. So we're all squeezing through this thing. We all make it through. Everybody's kind of happy. The new girlfriend, Molly, I think she was probably a little bit claustrophobic. So she's kind of getting a little bit nervous, a little bit antsy. And we start walking. We finally see sunlight. The problem was the sunlight was coming from above us. There's definitely an opening there, but it's like a sinkhole.

[B]

What?

[F]

So we're looking up probably 12 to 15ft. Jagged sandstone all over it. And my buddy Joe's like, look, I think we can climb out of this.

[A]

Oh, no, Joe. No, no, no.

[F]

Joe was that guy. Joe was that guy. Everybody's got the friend, Joe. He attempts to scale. At first, he gets up, no issues. It looked like other people had done it before. She can kind of see where people were putting their hands. I went up, My buddy Pete goes up, and then two of the girls come up, no issues. Up at the top, it's kind of slippery. You got wet. Leaves, a little bit of mud and stuff. And it's Molly's turn to come.

[A]

Oh, Molly.

[B]

Molly. I feel horrible for Molly.

[A]

Has anyone considered, like, tying a bunch of shirts together or any kind of rope system to throw down?

[F]

No, There wasn't even a thought. No. It was like, we're all just gonna muscle through this, climb out. So she gets on there. We're kind of guiding her where to put her feet, where to put her hands. She gets up to the top. She comes up to me. I grab her hand, and I say, you know, you're gonna go behind me, but go to the left. Don't go to the right. It's slick. For whatever reason, she ignored it. She didn't hear it. She steps to the right, and she slips. Have you guys ever seen those, like, Nesty Plunge commercials?

[A]

No, no.

[F]

They just fall backwards into the pool.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[F]

She went straight down this hole.

[C]

Oh.

[F]

Head first.

[D]

Oh.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[F]

Doesn't hit the side. Miraculously lands on her back. Eyes roll back. We all Freeze. It's dead silence. Everything's going through my head. I'm like, is this girl dead? Is she paralyzed? How are we going to get EMS here? Like, this is kind of before cell phones.

[A]

Also, climbing out of a shaft is much easier than climbing down a shaft.

[F]

We still had a few people down there. Josh, her boyfriend, was down there.

[A]

Okay.

[F]

And I just remember screaming down, like, don't touch her. Don't move her. Let's give her a second. It felt like eternity. Her eyes open up and you hear she had gotten the wind, like, severely knocked out of her.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

And she laid there after like 30 seconds. My beta blockers kicking in. My mouth is getting all dry here. After about 30 seconds, she sits up, she starts feeling around. She was visibly, like, terrified, but she stood up, we started checking her. Everything was good. And we're like, look, you got two options. We can go back through the cage cave, to get out, to get back to the camp, or bad option, climb again.

[A]

Oh, boy.

[F]

This girl was a trooper, though. She ended up climbing out, we got her out. Everybody got up safely. We're all kind of just like racking our brains, like, what just happened? Go back to the campsite. Everybody kind of goes to their tents. People are cracking beers. She goes in there and we start hearing, like, crying, like weeping. We're like, oh, no, she's in a bad way.

[A]

The shock has worn off.

[E]

Yeah.

[F]

The other girls go in there and she came out of the tent. She lifted up her shirt, her entire back. Everything was bruised. Like the worst bruising I've ever seen in my life. We got out of there safely. Nobody was seriously injured. I doubt she ever went camping again. I don't think that relationship lasted too long.

[A]

Right. It doesn't sound like a match to me.

[F]

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. But we all dodged a bullet that day for sure.

[B]

Yeah. Big time.

[A]

So there's photos.

[F]

Yeah, take a look at those photos. So one of them is the ent.

[E]

Oh, okay.

[A]

The entrance doesn't look inviting at all for. For the listener, the entrance is like, I don't know. There's a three foot gap at best to get in, and it's just miles of shale above you. Sandstone. Oh, my God. And then the next photo is someone looking down into this hole. Fuck that. Also, what she landed on is just covered in fucking sharp rocks.

[F]

It was a miracle.

[A]

I wonder if she did break anything and she just ignored it.

[B]

I'm surprised she didn't have internal bleeding. She probably did. And you guys just didn't do anything.

[C]

About it.

[F]

Dax mentioned the whole shock aspect. She was probably in shock. She gets that flight or fight thing going on, and she's not really feeling anything.

[A]

Yeah. Not to bore you, but I had this pretty horrific motorcycle accident in Santa Monica, and I didn't have insurance, so I refused the ambulance. And then I actually rode the broken motorcycle 10 blocks home, and I think I'm fine. And then I got in the shower, and, boy, once I got in the shower, I was like, oh, boy, I think I have some broken things. It's crazy how long it can be delayed like that.

[F]

Yeah, well, it's a little bit of denial mentally. And then obviously you're like, I do not want to go to the hospital. That's just another ordeal.

[A]

Can't afford it.

[B]

I hope Molly is thriving.

[A]

Oh, she is.

[B]

In her big city job where she never has to go camping ever again.

[F]

Probably an injury attorney somewhere.

[A]

Wow. Well, Kevin, I don't know why you were nervous. You told that story like a pro, beautifully. But let me ask you this. You have beta blockers on demand, which makes me think, do you do public speaking or something? When do you need them?

[F]

Yeah, with my position, it's called the afn, like the Armed Forces Network. We do have a radio show that I'll go on and promote different safety things. And then I've got to get up in front of the command a lot and just give speeches and, you know, talk about risk management, all that kind of fun stuff.

[A]

Yeah. Wow. I've never. And I have a lot of friends that obviously take beta block because they're performers, but I've not heard the dry mouth thing. Like, Kristen takes them before she sings.

[B]

That's exactly what I thought. I was like, oh, my God. If that's a side effect. Well, how is she doing?

[A]

Yeah, what if she got dry mouth right before a big thing?

[F]

Guys, we're all different. Our bodies react differently.

[A]

You're right.

[B]

You're so right.

[A]

You're right about that. Kevin.

[F]

Hey, can I give a quick shout out?

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

My beautiful wife, Tenille. It's one o' clock in the morning here. She tried to stay up. She apologizes. She wanted to come see.

[B]

No, we apologize that. This is the timing.

[F]

This is the best zoom call I've ever been on, so I really appreciate it.

[A]

Well, please send her our love. She is a true angel on Earth. If she is homeschooling all these children, we did it for whatever. It was two months during COVID and it was almost family ending.

[F]

You know, she's definitely the rock of this family. She keeps it all together. So much love to her. I wish she was here.

[A]

Oh, lovely.

[B]

Let's have fun in Greece.

[F]

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna stay as long as we can.

[A]

Well, lovely meeting you, Kevin. Take care.

[F]

Kali Nicta. Kali Nicta.

[E]

Bye.

[B]

What's that mean?

[A]

It was definitely goodbye in Greece.

[B]

Was it goodbye or love you or like. It could have been a lot of things. You guys are so hot.

[E]

Hello.

[A]

Are you in an rv?

[C]

I am, actually. It felt very fetching, considering it's a camping story.

[D]

Exactly. Sim.

[C]

I'm actually packing to go camping this evening. Oh, my God.

[A]

Ding, ding, ding. Are you in Canada?

[C]

Yes, I'm definitely in Canada. You clearly picked up on that.

[A]

Yeah. Are you in Ontario?

[C]

I am in bc. I'm on Vancouver.

[A]

Oh, the beautiful Vancouver Island. Are you in a motorhome or are you in a trailer?

[C]

I'm in a trailer. So I guess it could be loosely considered camping considering it's 30ft long and has a number of very nice amenities.

[A]

Well, don't you think that there is a trajectory for all of us campers, which is like, you do a lot of tent time and then eventually as you get older, you get weaker. Right.

[C]

It's true. I did the sort of natural progression from tenting to the little camperette to a fifth wheel and now what feels like a very bougie trailer.

[B]

Congratulations.

[A]

Yeah, it's good living. We drive a bus around. But yeah, to be able to be in nature and then also come in and cook food is pretty damn nice

[C]

and hear the rain as opposed to experience it.

[A]

Yeah, good distinction. So will you go camping somewhere on Vancouver Island?

[C]

I'm in Cow Chin Valley and we do a load of camping at Cowichan Lake. We are situated in a pristine location. We have rivers and oceans and gulf islands and lake school or to visit, which we sort of rotate between. You also have brown bears, more black bears, cougars. Actually had a bear in my garbage can two nights ago, which sent the dog right through the ceiling and was a wonderful mess to clean up.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

Okay, so you have a camping story. Tell us about it. When did it happen?

[C]

I have many camping stories. I'll tell you the best. It happened three years ago, 2023. I scheduled a week long trip to Cowichan Lake. It's one of my favorite spots. You're out of cel, beautiful swimming, et cetera. And a good sort of kickoff is the first week of July, so school's wrapped. I was really looking forward to, you know, a much needed Break from work.

[A]

How many kids do you have?

[C]

Two kids. This story is essentially about my son Brenner. He was nine at the time. And I have my daughter Ruby was five at the time, and my husband and our dog joining me. So my son's a big sports player, so he was on a number of baseball teams and the sports team scheduled tournament over the same weekend. So we quickly realized we're going to have to commute from the campground. So for the first three days, we're going to have about three or four games that we'll travel to and from to play, and then I'll have the remainder of the week to relax. And so the first night, Friday night, we stayed in town for a game, drove up. It's very uneventful. Got to our site, settled in, and I decided to call it a night. I wanted to get in early. It was a big week, packing, doing all the things. And so I said I'd hang out with my daughter Ruby, reading a book and having a glass of wine and finally, you know, unclenching my jaw. The boys have recognized some friends from town. They're camping next door, so they decided to join their campfire. So I'm hanging out, and not too much later, I'd say 45 minutes to an hour, I hear a bit of a commotion outside of the trailer door, and my husband and son kind of crash into the trailer. And I immediately can tell something's gone wrong.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[C]

And so I'm trying to get a bit of understanding. It's quite chaotic. I, of note, have experienced many, many emergent situations with my son. At this point, we have had enough head wounds and poison control calls that I can now sort of flag them as, okay, that's glue. Those are stitches. Here's where we're at. So I'm trying to remain calm and just kind of get scope of what's happened. And they tell me that he's burned himself and he might have burnt his eye. And I. What?

[A]

What?

[C]

And so he says, they're next door, decide to do the standard camping thing and make some s'. Mores. And so he's handed this two prong metal roasting stick, as if you've made s'. Mores. You know, sometimes when you get it from the previous use, there's a little bit of marshmallow leftover. So he put it in the fire to burn it off. It fell off and he picked it back up and went to blow out whatever was still attached to it. And he dropped the hot metal poker onto his face and into his open eye.

[B]

What?

[A]

Oh, my God. This is like a torture scene in a kidnapping movie, right?

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

I can't think of anything worse than getting a hot poker to the eyeball.

[B]

And was it the sharp part, too?

[C]

Yeah, this is my understanding. This is what I'm told. I've dropped the hot poker onto my face. So I'm like, okay, what is happening? What have you guys done? There's two Dads. They grab cell phone flashlights and are like, hold open your eye, let me see. And pour in some cold water from a bottle of water and just see, you know. Are you sure you burnt your eye? My instinct is, I'm like, how are you not on the ceiling screaming bloody murder right now if you've burnt your eyeball? I cannot imagine the intensity of that pain. And you. He's pretty cool. I'm looking at him immediately. There is a small pink mark at the highest point of his cheek. And as you know, burns, they don't really develop right away, but I noticed that, okay, there's enough visibly there. There's no mark near his eyelashes. And he's beautiful. Long dark lashes. So I think, well, surely they would have melted his cheek, being a little bit younger at nine, were a little bit fuller. And so they stuck out further than there. So I'm just trying to apply as much logic as I can. He's not letting me look in his eyeball. It's really bright. So I turn off all the lights and I kind of do a subt sidelight. I look and I truly can't see anything. So at this point, I don't think he has perhaps, maybe he just closed it in time. I give him Tylenol, Advil and what's called Rescue Remedy. It's like a little homeopathic thing to sort of settle your nerves. And so I get him settled and I say, what do you want to do when he just wants to go to bed? And I'm like, okay, for sure. So I'm like, I'm going to sleep with you. If anything happens or you're not feeling good, let me know. And it's important to note the campground closes their gate at about, I think, 11 o', clock, 10 or 11, and we are 40 minutes away from any sort of healthcare center as well. So I eventually fall asleep. I'm very surprised to see he goes to sleep quite quickly. He's barely cried. He was more than anything, quite embarrassed because this was, you know, a friend and he was a little bit older, was probably going to be on his hockey team that fall. And so I get everybody settled, and in the morning, very first light, I look at him and I see that. Okay, that burn on his cheek has developed. It's that dark purple. You can see. It's a bit of a shallow scab forming. I kind of gently check on him and I say, how you doing, buddy? Do you mind if I just double check your eye? I want to see. I just want to make sure you're okay. So I cracked the blind a little bit, and it's all filtered through the ferns and trees. It's low light and gentle. And he cracks his eye open, and there's this white line right down the center of his eyeball.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[C]

The color, the pupil, everything. And he looks like this insane snake.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[C]

I was like, he's immediately blind. This is all happening. He's never had sports again. I almost throw up, but have to shove every single part of that.

[A]

Yeah, you don't want to freak him out.

[C]

No. Right. So I'm like, oh, okay. Well, you know what? I think it might be worth a try this morning. Why don't we load up, we'll make it a thing. We'll grab breakfast. And I'm trying to be as calm as possible, making absolutely wild eye contact to my husband, who's like, asleep still in I don't even know what time frame. I get everybody loaded into the car. I get him in the backseat, kind of recline. I say, why don't you just keep a blanket over your head? You probably don't to want. Want light on you. I'm like, whisper hissed, what's actually happened and what I saw to my husband. And I'm like, get it together. So we are driving, and I'm trying also not to drive at, like 180 kilometers per hour, like I want to.

[A]

That'd be 104 miles an hour for our American listeners. Just so everyone knows, I'm driving along

[C]

and my husband in the front seat is just kind of see sawing between gagging and throwing up to, like, weeping. And I am karate chopping him, being like, shut up.

[A]

Oh, wow. Oh, he's really, really raveling on you. Is he hungover?

[C]

He could have been. Although I'm sure the amount of adrenaline might have washed all that out. I've learned now, as I said, we've been through quite a few emergent moments. I thought for sure I would be the weaker one. I fainted with the first head wound and then realized, okay, no, I'm gonna Have to be the one who digs deep and deal with it later. And so I was like, you get your shit together. You keep your blanket on your head. And I just continued gentle coaching. Like, hey, buddy, we're just gonna get it checked out. You never know if we want to keep camping for the week. Maybe we need a little medicine. And whatever happens today, we're gonna be fine. Yeah, we're gonna figure it out.

[A]

You're paving the way to say, like, your life's gonna change dramatically, and we've gotta slowly start easing into that new reality. Well, you'll have no depth perception.

[B]

Is he saying, like, it hurts at this point?

[C]

No, like it hurt the night. But he was more mad about everything. And I think because it was so mishandled and he was just kind of overwhelmed. But on the drive, completely cool as a cucumber, just laying back, blanket on his head. But in my head, I'm like, hey, what's so cool when I nickname. Or maybe we'll never play any sports again, and maybe we'll never have depth perception. Or, oh, my God, could I be a mom with a glass eye? Like, could I ever try to support that? That's gonna be a 90 degree learning curve. We finally get there, I don't park. I just leave the door open, throw the keys at my husband. I'm like, take her home. I'll rescue out later. I gotta go. And thankfully, again, inside emergency, they triage him. They recognize clearly this is a pretty legit injury. They give him this kind of an eye cover which keeps air off of it, wrap his head up, and we are put back into the second portion. We have a phenomenal group of staff members that provide exceptional care in a very small and dated hospital in our community. So we were in essentially a supply closet with the lights out, but with a stretcher. And so we had a nurse, very lovely man, come in first. He provided some more pain management. And then it didn't take long at all for a doctor to come in who was able to do sort of a physical inspection, confirm. Okay, obviously, there's the burn on the cheek. And confirmed. Yeah, you have a shallow cornea burn. With that, the treatment plan, they were going to explore calling in an ophthalmologist. They sent out, you know, the notes, et cetera. She decided, based on the description, it was shallow enough that a follow up would be sufficient. So that was scheduled for two days later. We got freezing eye drops and antibiotic eye drops because your next risk, of course, is infection and a nice handful of Some eye patches to take with us, and we were discharged. So we went home and I kind of got him settled. He ended up having a nap, and he wakes up and he's just feeling fine and said, you know what? I still want to go cheer my team on. Because he knows he can't play the game now. So I'm at the ball game with him. He's in the dugout with this head wrap, an eye patch on.

[A]

Looks like he was attacked by a brown bear.

[C]

I was like, you gotta come up with a really good story. He's had two trophies now for sportsmanship. He just really wanted to be there and cheer on his team. They ended up winning. We ended up going back camping. We spent the night, and then the next morning, you know, we were following all of the things, and I guess it must be similar to a mouth, but it healed so quickly and essentially just kind of sloughed off. That's rather gross.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That same day, he ended up deciding he was fine, and we put a ton of sunscreen on the actual cheek burn and a hat and sunglasses. And he went out and he played the final game. Oh, my God. And scored an in park home run. And the whole team won. And it was just most insane weekend ever.

[A]

This is a movie. All right, I've got photos.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Here's the championship team.

[C]

There's the team. You can see his little white spot. And then we've got some of the actual injury.

[A]

Here we go with his contraption over his face. And then his cute little burn on his cheek. What did he get on his ankle? What's going on with the ankle?

[C]

I've actually written in a few times, and everybody that are all armchairs thanks to me, immediately said, well, what story? And in that week alone, so I mentioned we went back camping and he finishes the game the next day. I fell down the stairs and I annihilated this one leg. And then I thought, that's fine. Let's just keep on going. And then. Then two days after that, that is my leg. I got bit by a dog.

[A]

Oh.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[B]

That's bad for a dog bite. It's, like, in there.

[C]

And I was so frustrated that I was like, I have gone to the hospital four times already this week. I only have five days off, and I just taped it up. And I am actually just not even addressing this at this point.

[B]

Wow.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

You guys need, like a nickname, like the Ouchies or something. Like, the whole family's really vulnerable to injury.

[B]

Yeah. Accident prone.

[C]

We're A bit of a chaos crew, for sure.

[B]

I see the snake.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's cool, actually, now that we know his eyes stayed intact. Well, Anna, I burnt my cornea as well one time.

[C]

Stop it.

[A]

Yeah. Monica already knows the story, but I was in high school. I was a senior. I was in a girl's yard, in her front yard. I was smoking a cigarette and I jokingly. I don't even really know what I was thinking, but I was gonna, like, ash my cigarette by fl. And I flicked it and it went straight up, flew up in the air and went straight into my eye. And I blinked at the worst time, like it had been better if I just didn't even blink. But when I blinked, it pinched the cherry end of the cigarette. Where I had to smack the cigarette out of my eyelids because it was pinched in there holding it. And then you had to go to the doctor. They said you burnt your cornea. They gave me drops in a patch.

[B]

How long did you wear the patch?

[A]

A few hours.

[C]

Did you score a home run?

[A]

I did not. I wasn't on any championship teams. Yeah. I probably wouldn't smoke more cigarettes. Yeah.

[C]

I am grateful at night it wasn't from a cigarette and only a smoke. Do you want to meet?

[A]

Oh, yes.

[C]

This is Dax and Monica. But you know them.

[A]

Yeah. Brenner.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Nice to meet you.

[E]

Nice to meet you, too.

[A]

Are you a Blue Jays fan?

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

And you're still talking to us even though we're from Los Angeles. I appreciate it.

[B]

How does your eye feel now? All better?

[E]

Yeah, it's fine.

[D]

It's like, all better.

[B]

Oh, good.

[A]

You still playing baseball?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What position do you play?

[B]

Pitcher.

[E]

Short stop and back catcher.

[A]

These are all the roles that pay the most money if you get into the major leagues, so keep at it.

[B]

Good choices. Well, we're proud of you for going back to your game and that story. It's really good.

[A]

Big time.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

And you're about to go camping again. Are you going to make some marshmallows?

[C]

Probably, but not with the marshmallow stick.

[F]

Okay.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We've learned our lesson.

[A]

Have you ever made a s' more with a Reese's peanut butter cup instead of a Hershey's chocolate bar?

[D]

Yeah, we've probably done that before.

[A]

Yeah, that's where it's at. That's where it's at.

[B]

Thanks.

[A]

Chatting you? Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

Thank you.

[C]

Yeah. You can see in one of the photos, he's got another scar right above the burn from the six stitches a day before kindergarten. Motorbike into the fence.

[A]

Whiskey throttle.

[B]

You guys have been through it and

[A]

a nice meeting you. Such a lovely family.

[C]

Thanks so much. Take care.

[A]

All right, have fun.

[B]

Oh, cuties.

[A]

I want to go camping now. I really do. Now I want to go. Yes, I want to camp. All right. Love you.

[C]

Love you.

[A]

Do you want to sing a tune

[E]

or something with a theme song?

[A]

Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of armchairies, we'll get some suggestions on the fire rhyme dish. On the fire rhyme dish. Enjoy.