Fired from the Forest Service by DOGE, Public Lands Advocacy, and Finding Joy in a World of Bad News with Liz Crandall (BPR #358)

Summary

Backpacker Radio #358: Fired from the Forest Service by DOGE, Public Lands Advocacy, and Finding Joy in a World of Bad News with Liz Crandall

Date: May 25, 2026
Host: Zach "Badger" Davis and Juliana "Chaunce" Chauncey
Guest: Liz Crandall (Former U.S. Forest Service ranger, podcast host of Rangers of the Lost Park)

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Episode Overview

This episode features a riveting interview with Liz Crandall, a former U.S. Forest Service ranger who was swept up in the mass firings of 2025 orchestrated by the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) under the incoming administration. Liz details her journey from climbing the federal government’s career ladder to losing her job through a bewildering series of emails and impersonal bureaucratic moves, and ultimately transitioning to a new career as a public lands advocate, activist, and podcaster. The conversation covers topics from public lands policy, trauma and resilience after job loss, the realities of working in the Forest Service, wildlife encounters, and a humorous dose of classic Backpacker Radio “poop stories.”

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Highlights & Key Discussion Points

1. Podcast Updates and Host Reflections

Timestamps: 05:21–10:40

• Juliana "Chaunce" Chauncey discusses her upcoming departure from the show, feelings of nostalgia and bittersweetness as she drives to the studio for one of her final episodes.
• Hosts promote upcoming live shows and new YouTube/video content, inviting fans to be part of Chaunce's Colorado send-off.
• "The last episode was the whiskey phase. Today might be the crying phase." (Chaunce, 09:53)

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2. Meet Liz Crandall: From Federal Career to “Fired Fed” and Podcast Host

Timestamps: 17:10–30:18

• Liz outlines her 9-year path from a GS3 volunteer to a GS6 permanent employee in the Forest Service, driven by passion for public lands despite the low pay and uphill career climb.
• "You don't do it for the money. You do it because you love being outdoors and being around people and teaching them how to leave no trace..." (Liz, 30:35)
• Importance of “knowing a little about a lot” in seasonal outdoor work.
• Quick primer on GS (General Schedule) job ratings in federal government and the challenges and slog of career advancement.

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3. The DOGE Firing Ordeal: Spammy Emails, Chaos, and Mass Layoffs

Timestamps: 42:05–53:06

• Liz describes the strange sequence of events leading up to the firings—odd, spam-like emails titled things like "Fork in the Road," mass requests for supervisors to identify “probationary employees”, confusing buy-out offers with no clear congressional funding.
• "Quit your job, go on that vacation you’ve always wanted, and take this resignation and get paid…" (Recounting DOGE email, 45:01)
• The firings hit on President’s Day weekend, catching employees in a state of total confusion, even among conservative and pro-administration coworkers.
• Emotional aftermath: “Even the people who voted for the administration were crying.” (Liz, 49:43)
• Chaos and lack of communication: "If you guys [HR] don't know what is happening, how does no one know?" (Liz, 47:24)

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4. From Ranger to Activist: Speaking Up Post-Firing

Timestamps: 54:32–63:13

• Liz details the swift pivot from “trained not to speak to the press” to taking advocacy head-on—doing live CNN and international interviews to set the record straight and share the real impact of the firings.
• "I just saw all these opportunities that weren't being taken... So I just was like, f*ck it, I'll do it." (Liz, 55:04)
• The burden and privilege of representing her former colleagues and processing grief publicly: “I'm not just here for myself. I have all these voices and people behind me…” (58:41)

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5. Public Lands Policy: Contention, Advocacy, and the Roadless Rule

Timestamps: 63:13–68:25

• Detailed critique of government moves to rescind the Roadless Rule (which protects wilderness areas from roads and development), dangers of increased extraction (logging/mining) on public lands, and consequences for wildfire.
• "Most fires start by roads…why would you put more roads?" (Liz, 65:14)
• The tension between supporting natural resource jobs and protecting biodiversity, water, and wildfire regimes.

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6. Rangers of the Lost Park: Launching a Mission-Based Podcast

Timestamps: 70:21–75:11

• The backstory on launching the Rangers of the Lost Park podcast with a fellow “fired fed,” focusing on storytelling to counter misinformation about public lands.
• Liz’s “crown jewel” guest: Ken Burns, landing the legendary documentarian after an out-of-the-blue email.
• "The moral of the story is you should shoot your shot... The worst that happens is they just don't write you back." (Liz, 74:05)

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7. Remaining Battles & the Importance of Joy

Timestamps: 78:42–94:45

• Discussion of ongoing social and political battles facing public lands advocates—especially the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
• “DEI doesn’t just serve people who are underrepresented, it serves all of us.” (Liz, 79:21)
• How to maintain optimism and joy despite bleak news: "I want to show an example to people of, like, you can be informed and happy... Joy is a form of resistance." (Liz, 92:20)

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8. Wildlife Rehab, Animal Encounters, and Poop Stories

Timestamps: 18:45, 95:48–104:39, 107:20–117:17

• Hilarious and harrowing stories from Liz: wildlife rehab with “porcupettes,” rabid beaver and raccoon tales, and ethical animal human encounters.
• Poop Story #1: Contracting giardia from SoCal tap water and being forced to defecate in a family picnic pavilion (“blew ass all over the pavilion”). (99:38)
• Poop Story #2: Caught mid-defecation under a bridge in Chattanooga by a screaming passerby. (101:08)
• Wild Encounters: Mountain lion standoff in Mesa Verde National Park (108:40), repeated grizzly bear run-ins in Yellowstone (112:24), and the importance of trusting intuition in grizzly country (116:29).

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9. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "History doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes." – Ken Burns (as relayed by Liz, 77:29)
• "Trash pandas are amazing. I got my ranger raccoon tattoo after being fired by DOGE." (Liz, 18:49)
• "As a fed, you’re trained to never talk to the press... but I had to fight against that." (Liz, 53:54)

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10. Practical Gear & Trail Tips

• Liz’s gear obsession: the collapsible bucket—for collecting water, foraging, or a makeshift bear hang. (104:53)
• Top outdoor hack: "OD on electrolytes." Pina colada-flavored “pure salt” tabs kept her going in the field. (118:42)

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11. Triple Crowns & Community Segments

Timestamps: 89:41, 133:59, 136:01, 137:28

• Triple Crown of Rangers of the Lost Park Guests:

  1. Chuck Sams (First Indigenous NPS director)
  2. Liz’s little sister (noted for comic relief)
  3. Lance Garland (openly queer Navy vet, firefighter and author)

• Triple Crown of Worst Gifts for Young Kids:

  • Whistles and noisy toys
  • Stickers (that end up everywhere but where they’re supposed to)
  • Sweet or sticky (candies/gum/slime) treats
  • Small pets
  • Toys with too many easily lost pieces

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12. Listener Emails, Poop Stories, and Parenting Fails

Timestamps: 157:01, 161:01, 149:25

• Legendary listener email—defecating in the woods, caught by a trail cam, and the ongoing quest for the “poop story” author/cleaner reunion.
• Parenting “fail”: Zach butchers The Boy Who Cried Wolf, skipping the part about the sheep and accidentally making it about a boy eaten by a wolf.
• Call for more listener poop stories and misadventures (especially follow-ups from “the other side”!).

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13. Public Lands Advocacy & Getting Involved

Timestamps: 82:52, 85:34

• Gentle encouragement to listeners: It’s okay to protect your peace, but if you’re informed or asked and have the capacity, help out by signing petitions, commenting, or supporting public lands.
• “There’s no such thing as a perfect advocate...I try to approach people with curiosity, not with judgment.” (Liz, 84:52)

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Key Takeaways

• The personal and professional stakes of public lands management are high: Liz’s story is emblematic of how large-scale administrative actions have a powerful, often painful, ripple effect on motivated, mission-driven employees and the landscapes they serve.
• Advocacy is necessary but requires balance and joy: The best defense against burnout and despair is to “find joy amid the darkness,” stay connected, and celebrate community wins, however small.
• Public lands fights are ongoing: Roadless Rule, funding for trail crews, support for DEI, and basic worker protections are all under threat; staying educated and advocating is critical.
• Anyone can step up: Whether it’s running a podcast, doing media hits, or just respectfully spreading good information, there’s a place for everyone in the fight to protect our trails and wild places.
• Don’t drink SoCal tap water from a McDonald’s bathroom when hitchhiking.

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Guest Links

• Podcast: Rangers of the Lost Park
• Instagram: @rangersofthelostpark
• Patreon: Support Liz’s work here
• YouTube: (Coming soon; search channel by podcast name)

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Notable Episode Timestamps

• 30:35 – Liz on the Forest Service climb and why people stick with it.
• 45:01 – DOGE “Fork in the Road” firing emails.
• 49:43 – "Even people who voted for the administration were crying."
• 74:05 – "Shoot your shot" (on podcast guest outreach).
• 92:20 – Joy as resistance.
• 99:38 – Pavilion poop story.
• 108:40 – Up-close mountain lion in the bathroom story.
• 112:24 – Yellowstone grizzly intuition story.

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Closing

A classic Backpacker Radio episode weaving together laughter, resilience, and serious lessons from the intersection of hiking culture and public lands policy. Listen for insights on how the personal is always political—and wild stories from the field that will have you laughing, thinking, and planning your next trek with renewed purpose.

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Compiled by Backpacker Radio Podcast Summarizer – 2026

Transcript

[Zach Badger Davis]

In today's episode of BACKPACKER Radio, presented by the Trek brought to you by Topo Athletic, we are joined by Liz Crandall, a former U.S. forest Service field ranger who was fired by Doge last February and has since transitioned into advocacy, activism and podcasting, serving as the host of Rangers of the Lost Park. In this one, Liz walks us through nine years of climbing the federal government's career ladder from GS3 volunteer to permanent employee and what it actually felt like to receive the phone call telling her it was all over. She breaks down the Doge firing process, the spam looking emails that nobody believed were real, the fork in the road offer that most people didn't take, and what it looked like inside a Forest Service office where even the people who voted for the administration were crying. She also shares what it took to go from a person who was trained to never talk to the press to someone doing live CNN the roadless rule and why she thinks rescinding it is a bad idea. Her crown jewel podcast guest Ken Burns and two pants shitting stories from her hitchhiking days that she's been dreading telling us since she booked this podcast. We wrapped the show with hikers who discovered human remains in Vermont, the celebrity names we can never remember How I Butchered the Boy who Cried Wolf to my Boy, the triple crown of the worst gifts to give your kids and an all time listener email and poop story. But first, a backpacker's most important piece of gear is their footwear. You can have the rest of your pack absolutely dialed in, but if your feet aren't happy, you aren't happy. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce today's sponsor, Topo Athletic. If you tuned into our footwear episode with Dr. Courtney Conley, a physician specializing in foot and gait mechanics, you already know that Topo Athletic was on her shortlist of brands she recommends for hikers now. That's because Topo Athletic makes trail runners with a zero or minimal drop and a roomy toe box. The minimal drop promotes a more natural gait, while the wide toe box allows your toes to fully splay. Thru hikers have caught on the topos as well. According to the Trek's AT Thru Hiker survey, Topo went from not even cracking the list four years ago to being the second most used brand in the Trek's most recent survey, narrowly missing out on the top spot. Topo Athletic is beloved by thru hikers for their superior superior durability and grippy outsoles. In addition to the minimal drop and wide toe box. Our gear reviewers have reported getting anywhere from 600 to 1,000 miles out of a single pair of topos before needing a replacement. This can save you not hundreds, but more than $1,000 over the course of a single thru hike. All Topo shoes utilize their Vibram outsoles, which is both grippy and durable, a rare combination. Typically you have to pick one or the other. Chauncey and I have both been rocking Topo Athletic Tronce were the pursuit twos for the full Northville Passa Trail and many miles since. I put in hundreds of miles in my pursuit twos over the last couple of years, including a thru hike up Tour de Mont Blanc without even an ounce of foot discomfort. All right, here's the part you've been waiting for. The Discount Backpacker Radio listeners can score a 15% discount by using code TREK15TOPO at checkout at topoathletic.com Again, use code TREK15TOPO all one word and the number 15 at checkout out at topoathletic dot com for your new favorite pair of trail runners. This discount is only valid on full price items and is only good for a limited time, so do not wait. If you've listened to BACKPACKER Radio for any amount of time, you know that Chance and I are big fans of Gosmer gear and today I want to talk about their newest pole, the FT3 trekking poles. These are ideal for fast packing and trail running, where the terrain changes fast and and you need to go from pocket to pole and back again in seconds. No more choosing between carrying poles you don't need and scrambling for poles you can't reach. Stash them, grab them, go. At just 6.2 ounces per pole, carbon fiber shafts and a custom molded EVA foam grip keep every swing light. They're a variation of the best selling LT5s, dialed in specifically for when speed is the priority. If you're putting in big miles and the trail keeps throwing different terrain at you, the FT3s are your go to discount time. Backpacker Radio listeners can score a $20 discount off these polls or the popular LT5s by using code backpackerradio at [e-mail] Again, that's code backpackerradio all one [e-mail] for 20 off your new favorite set of UL tracking poles. This deal is only good for a limited time, so do not wait. Welcome to Backpack Radio present of the Trek brought to you by Topo Athletic. I am your Co host Zach Badger Davis. Sitting to my right is.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Hi, I'm Juliana Chauncey, AKA Chauncey.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I got the direction wrong last time. I was making sure to not it up this time.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh, that was the least of our worries on that one.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I mean, no. Are we gonna start with processing?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Sure.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Okay. I think last episode we went through the phase of whiskey, which is one of the phases of grief. Yeah. Which is, I think, a very important phase of grief.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. And denial. Whiskey.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Whiskey.

[Liz Crandall]

Yep.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I could do that without the listeners, but they've been through so much.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. They're along for the journey.

[Juliana Chauncey]

They all, you know, all of them. They deserve one last Unhinged chance episode. We've both gotten older.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You're saying that the last episode was the last one, like in my brain,

[Juliana Chauncey]

I hope you know who could tell the future.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Not to tip or anything, but I have a feeling the next episode could also take you there.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I'm she who is optimistic, right? Yep. And you know what? I don't know all the stages of grief. So there could be more than one whiskey stage. All I'm saying is last week was a whiskey stage and it was surprise whiskey, which made it even more enticing. And why, why, why keep that from the lovely listener?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh, yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

They're gonna lose me soon enough. So if they have to press pause and digest, you know, a five hour episode over the course of three months, it's one of the last ones you get.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That's true.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And anyone who hated it, I'm. I'm going to be gone soon. So, you know, that was enough. Bide your time.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That was enough chance to get through the rest of 2026.

[Liz Crandall]

Right.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Like, I'm just. I'm making it. I'm making this breakup easier by making myself unbearable first.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Like, have you seen Housemaids? Maybe with. Oh, God.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, the housemaid.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Is that what it is?

[Liz Crandall]

Amanda Seyfried.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, that's the Handmaid. Oh, that's the Handmaid's Tale. No, not Amanda Seyfried.

[Zach Badger Davis]

She's right. Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney.

[Liz Crandall]

Yes. And it's based on the book and the lady's just psycho and. Oh, tries to figure out.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I can't go into why they're correlated, but. Because it's a spoiler alert and it has nothing to do with boobs, I promise.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, I'm just thinking you're insinuating of a psycho.

[Zach Badger Davis]

No, it was. I'm.

[Liz Crandall]

Why would you get boobs the way

[Zach Badger Davis]

that you're looking at me, I feel like I can't mention Sydney Sweeney as a guy without that being the response. Go on, Zach Davis, tell me I

[Juliana Chauncey]

hadn't thought about Boobs.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Well, I did, now that we're talking

[Liz Crandall]

about it, but now I'm thinking about it.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. Pom Poms, as we call him here. Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'll just say there's a plot twist in that movie that's not totally unrelated to what you're saying

[Juliana Chauncey]

about drinking whiskey.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Or just if I say more, then I'm gonna spoil alert the movie.

[Liz Crandall]

Okay.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I don't plan on watching, but that's great.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And so today that was available on the flight.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Okay, that's great.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Not because Boobs.

[Liz Crandall]

Right.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You didn't want to see Boobs.

[Liz Crandall]

Yes.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So that was the whiskey phase.

[Liz Crandall]

You're welcome.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Or sorry for that, depending on how you enjoyed it or hated it today. I don't know what today's phase is. Pilsner. I think I came into this feeling very good about it. I came in being like, we just closed on the house on Thursday. I've started packing. I'm in a good head space. And then I started driving here, and the sun was shining and the weather was good, and I was like, I feel good about how this is going to go. And that's huge because today we put out the episode announcing that I was leaving and to plan a podcast recording on the same day. We announced that with how I've been processing. Feels cruel, right? But we did it, and I'm here.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That was not intentional.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. No. And I also didn't think about it until either I turned on 6th street and I was looking at the mountains and I had new Noah Khan's new album playing on the speakers, and I cried the whole way here.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Ah. I thought your eyes were red. Because it was.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, you mentioned that.

[Liz Crandall]

I was like, I'll tell you on.

[Juliana Chauncey]

On air, I was doing so well. And then I saw the mountains, and I was thinking about how many more drives to this podcast do I have where I'll be looking at this view? And the mountains looked nice and the weather was hitting. And then I got sad. I mean, Noah's album's really sad, but then I got sad.

[Zach Badger Davis]

How much do you blame the mountains and how much do you blame Noah?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Everything was vibing in the right way, and I had. I was in such a good headspace. 5 minutes prior so I don't know. I don't know where this episode will take me. I know it's not going to be the same Direction as last time because

[Zach Badger Davis]

we don't have whiskey on the table currently.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Right.

[Zach Badger Davis]

We're in a bad and time constraints. So we're. Thank you for putting the guardrails on us.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yes. So. But today, I don't know. Today on the way here it was crying. So maybe the theme of this week's processing is crying.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I don't know.

[Liz Crandall]

I support that.

[Juliana Chauncey]

We'll see.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, I like that. Like acceptance, whiskey crying, having different stages of processing.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I think that's how it goes.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Cuz I don't feel like I'm in a whiskey stage today.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I don't think any of us are. It's a Monday.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. Although I think the last one was a Tuesday also not much of a whiskey day, but that doesn't matter. Okay, good. Well, I'm sure we'll continue to process as the episode goes on, but let's do some reminders before we get to our interview. I guess as a direct segue from processing is we have a live podcast. This is the Chaunce send off podcast. This is going to be epic. This is going to be. You said that you're done being a train wreck for the podcast. I guarantee that'll be you at the live podcast.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Great.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'll be a train wreck too. It'll be nothing but trains going off the rails.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Perfect. I can't wait to wake up the next morning regret everything.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, that'll definitely be an Uber to the event sort of affair for. At least for me.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

But for you, if you're hearing this and we're not already sold out, definitely jump on. Get your tickets. This is going down at the Skylark in Denver. Doors open at 6, taping begins at 6:30. We've got a lot of surprises up our sleeve for this one. It's Tron's last Definites in Colorado podcast, though. I. I think the one at the end of the year. I don't want to te. I. We'll pretend like it's the last one, but.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

[Liz Crandall]

yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I have no idea what up my sleeve means with what he's saying, but they put the link out today. And even if you're just curious about coming, it's a fun link to click because they put together whoever did it, whoever was responsible.

[Liz Crandall]

It was you.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It was me.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Wow. He put together a collage of terrible photos of me. And it is the thumbnail. No, most are. Yeah, it's the thumbnail for the live podcast tickets. So if for no reason other than just you need a laugh Check out the link.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, but if you're in the Denver area at the end of June, you got to come to this. Yeah. Be epic.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I mean, what could be more depressing than it, like being empty?

[Zach Badger Davis]

No, it's. It's like the way that Mexicans celebrate death is going to be a celebration. Not saying that.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No death, but yeah, I can figuratively die.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay. Yeah. This is meant to celebrate.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I want to be carried in. In a coffin.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And then you open it up and I come out like Dracul. And then I take my seat.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. Undertaker. Basically.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. Everyone wear black.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That's fun. Next reminder is we've got a fun series of videos going down on the Trek's YouTube. That's with Andrew Skurka. The kickoff video that we did was him doing a very thorough demonstration on how to use the backcountry bidet, including using your hand to do a lot of the dirty work, which has drawn some interesting comments from people. He's no stranger to that. I think he gets that feedback every time he talks about his technique. But we. We're going to be releasing videos with the great Andrew Skirka every single week on the Trek's YouTube channel. So click the link in the show notes and subscribe. Or just go to YouTube and search the trek, but definitely subscribe. You want to make sure that you're getting these videos first because I've been sitting in on all of the recordings of these and they're great. The other YouTube note I've got here is we've got a brand new channel and.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh, nope, I got preemptions. You clicked that one first.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I know. That was.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Don't mind me. I was just adjusting.

[Zach Badger Davis]

The other YouTube channel we've got is the Trek on Trail. This is the people who are out through hiking documenting their journeys. We've spun this off into its own channel. That way we can keep the featured content on one track and the on trailer content on a different track. Be sure to subscribe to this. We've got two people on the PCT and another on the at. We'll keep it in a small group for this first year, but three awesome, very engaging personalities and we would love your support of them. Be sure to subscribe. Like comment the YouTube Internet stuff, please. Next is now you can do truns

[Juliana Chauncey]

if you're on YouTube and you're looking. I'm showing you my shirt. Yep, it's a new one.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yep. This is going to be a limited run. This is the newest backpacker radio merch. It is fancy. It's got a ultralight trowel on the back with Backpacker Radio and a can you dig it? We'll spam you on Instagram so you can actually see it. But yeah, this is just a fun way to rep your favorite or maybe second favorite outdoor podcast or third or fourth. There's no. We're not keeping score here. But yeah, this is just a fun way to show your love for Backpacker Radio and give Chance a little extra beer money. Both of us a little extra beer money. As Chaunce begins her next journey into domesticated life on the east coast, you'll

[Juliana Chauncey]

notice a convenient overlap in timing of this limited run and my limited remaining run. So don't sleep on it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

They both expire.

[Liz Crandall]

They're both expiring, so get them while you can.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, but the shirts are cool. Check them out. Last but not least is we'll continue to pump this up very much. Deservedly so is patreon.com backpacker radio is where you go to get every episode advertisement free. But also this is going to be mine and Chaunce's sandbox to continue the podcast as is in a different format.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yep, like cats in sandboxes. That will be where we start to shit instead of here. And so we're calling it bpr. Bpr. It's bpr, but Patreon remote. So you know, that way you can know that there's a difference but also feel the same feelings. Giving it a name helps. Come, come hang out. I hope that you do come. Otherwise it's going to be really depressing for me.

[Zach Badger Davis]

So Chance and I still need to talk through the exact details of what the Patreon thing is going to be. But I think we've loosely discussed that our minimum goal is three exclusive episodes per month. Some of those might be Chaunce solo. We'll probably do some like Zoom style chats as well. It'll be different than this podcast because I think the magic in this podcast is being in person. But we also want to maintain the Badger Chance connection. So we'll do what we can. But also, Chance is going to be in a new area and have the opportunity to chat with new folks and seems like she'll have a lot of time on her hands.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. Also, where was that thought I just had it and then it went away. Oh, no. I hate when this happens.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Drink your beer. It'll come back.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh, hold on. I had a thought. I'll say the also, yes, if you have things that you're like, ugh, I hope they still do this or I don't want to lose this. You know, like, for example, like, oh, I want them to do a question of the day. I don't know, just throwing out something. Any idea you have that you want that would make it worth it for you to go there. Just let us know. Because again, it's a sandbox, and we're testing things out in it, and we will take feedback and try to implement it where realistic.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, good. I don't have anything else to add there as a lot of reminders. Okay, let's get to today's interview with Liz Crandle, who's a former U.S. forest Service field ranger who was fired by Doge last February. As an avid hiker, backpacker, and trail worker, she is transitioned into advocacy and activism work. Last summer, she started the podcast Rangers of the Lost park to cover topics relating to public lands. Liz, thank you so much for joining us here on backpack Radio.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, I'm so honored. Thank you, guys. Especially while you're still here. Chaunce, it's so nice to be in the studio, and I've been a fan for a long time, so thank you for having me.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Thanks for coming on.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Also, a podcast name. I remember when I saw it on my podcast app, I was like, that's funny.

[Liz Crandall]

I can't take credit for it. My partner, he's the one that came up with it, and I was like, it's perfect. And I hate that that wasn't my idea, but I'm very into it, so

[Juliana Chauncey]

you could just say it was.

[Liz Crandall]

I could, you know, just steal the glory.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I want to start off by complimenting your tattoos. I like your tattoos.

[Liz Crandall]

Thank you. I have a ranger raccoon.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh, for the youtubers.

[Liz Crandall]

I got it, actually. After being illegally fired by Doge. I wanted to commemorate my ranger friends and my time as a ranger. It's kind of funny because the US Forest Service, the only rangers technically are the district rangers, because that's. You think of more of, like, park rangers with National Park Service. Forest Service workers are forestry technicians, but I don't think that sounds as cool, so I just say rangers.

[Juliana Chauncey]

What's. What's the significance of the raccoon? Because I noticed it's also on your bolo tie.

[Liz Crandall]

I just love raccoons. I think they're so cool. I just. I think they're so underrated by folks that don't like them. I'm just like, I don't understand how you couldn't like this cute little trash panda. They're amazing. And they're so smart. I used to work in wildlife rehab for a little bit, and whenever we had baby raccoons, oh, my God, it was incredible.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Did you get to hold up?

[Liz Crandall]

No. So we had to be really careful because they imprint on humans really easily. So you have to actually wear, like, a full ghillie suit, like what hunters wear, and have, like, big, giant boots. And you have to, like. It's kind of sad. You have to, like, bang on pots and pans to scare them away from you. I know it's heartbreaking because they come up to you just like, hi. And you're like, no, I'm so sorry.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Get away. If I was in that field, I would leave with 100 raccoons imprinted on me. And, like, getting fired.

[Liz Crandall]

Well, there's a lot of people that do that, especially in backwoods. Like, not actual rehab facilities. Like, I mean, my uncle owned a raccoon in Arkansas.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I have a friend whose parents domesticated a raccoon. I think maybe a couple of them.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I keep telling Garrett that's one of my first goals.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. I don't. I think, to Liz's point, I don't know if it's that hard. Like, I think they're.

[Liz Crandall]

No, they're. I mean, you have to be careful, though, because they carry rabies. So you have to be careful of that if you get bit. But, I mean, that's why you have to get a rabies shot when you work in wildlife rehabilitation. So I got mine, and I got it covered by. When I was on OHP organ health plan at the time. So that was nice. So life hack for people, if you're in Oregon and you have ohp, just go get a rabies shot. Because it's so expensive if you actually get rabies or get bit to go to the hospital after that. Whereas if you just get the shot, like, you're good for life.

[Zach Badger Davis]

So why haven't we domesticated raccoons?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Foolishness.

[Liz Crandall]

Well, they haven't been bred, like, dogs and cats to have, like, the aggressive tendencies go away. So they're quite aggressive.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Can you get better from rabies? I thought we talked about this once, and we thought you just die.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, I think you die.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Right?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So if you don't have the shot and you get rabies, you just die, pretty much. And if you do have the shot,

[Liz Crandall]

you just don't die, pretty much.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Can you treat babies?

[Juliana Chauncey]

I would like to get this shot.

[Liz Crandall]

I think it's. I mean, I'm sure there's been stories of People that recovered somehow. But I think in general, yeah, it's not a good chance.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Not treatable once symptoms appear. So if it gets to the point where you're asymptomatic, you gone.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You're not gonna know before. Well, I guess you would know if you got bit, by the way, you would know. That animal bit you.

[Liz Crandall]

Did you see that crazy video recently of a beaver that was rabid and attacked somebody?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I did see that. Going after a K, right?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. What, in Canada? I can't remember. Yeah, but yeah, because they. Beavers are a rabies vector species, so they can transmit it and Yeah, I mean, they're. They're territorial animals and especially when they are aggressive from having this like, neurological problem with rabies. I mean, they can charge and they have severe bites. There's been people that have died by beavers before.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Big teeth.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, they do.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Didn't the parents, like, end up grabbing the beaver and like chucking it back

[Liz Crandall]

so they like, eat it back into the water? Video up.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Liz Crandall]

I feel bad for the be. I mean, I feel bad for everybody involved, obviously, but I feel bad for the beaver because it's like, you know, unfortunate circumstances, people in the wrong place.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Beaver.

[Liz Crandall]

And I. I don't. I don't know because I don't get a full context from the video, but I kind of have a feeling they were harassing it or maybe like getting too close. I don't know. This is my hot take with like, wildlife is like, leave them the alone. Like, don't go near them. Just keep your distance. Like, don't try to channel like some Disney fantasy.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Just.

[Liz Crandall]

Just leave them alone. And I think that's. So if you call yourself an animal lover, but you go and you bug wildlife, I question if you actually love them.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, that's a great take.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, my God.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You're watching the video.

[Juliana Chauncey]

They threw it like you would throw

[Liz Crandall]

a kid in a pool. And they're heavy, so yeah, that took effort. That was adrenaline going.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That's like lifting the claws.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Why are they not letting their. Their dog is just in the water next to it.

[Liz Crandall]

They're not stopping their dog. That's kind of my thought was like, I don't. Were very smart.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, they don't. Look, they don't appear to be that way. Also convenient how the video starts when they're in the water struggling with it.

[Liz Crandall]

Right, exactly, exactly. So I don't know if they were throwing something at it. You know, I don't want to assume because I don't know, but it hapters yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

So speaking of throwing stuff at animals, did you guys see the crazy video with the guy in Maui that threw the giant rock at the sea?

[Liz Crandall]

Oh my God, Maui.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You haven't seen this video?

[Liz Crandall]

No.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Should I not?

[Zach Badger Davis]

No, it ends up being okay because he throws like a. Basically a bowling ball sized rock at an endangered seal.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Why does he do that?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Liz Crandall]

It's very upsetting.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Know that he misses the seal, the seal's fine. That's an important thing. But seeing its reaction, you'd think that

[Juliana Chauncey]

throw a rock at him.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Well, so that's what I want he gotta do. No, he got his ass beat.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Really?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. Where like shortly thereafter they show a short clip right on his ass. Yeah, they show a short clip of like a Hawaiian fella just giving them the old one too.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Good for that guy.

[Liz Crandall]

I didn't see that part. That's amazing.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh, and then I saw some clips with. I don't know if it's like the mayor of the city or the governor of Hawaii or what it was, but like talking through it and being like, we don't condone violence, but. And basically like, but on that guy.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, we do.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Now this guy is getting doxed. He's just the worst person of all time.

[Liz Crandall]

I hope I fully support public shaming people that do stuff like that.

[Zach Badger Davis]

To that extent. That's just a villain. Like that doesn't mean that person does not need to be around society.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, I don't. How do you get that silly in the head that you're on land and he's in the water and you throw a big rock at him? That was just ridiculous.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So that's okay. So those are two sad things.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

We're completely off to animal videos.

[Liz Crandall]

Well, okay. I have a fun rehab story. That was really cute.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Lighten the mood for me.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. So I worked in wildlife rehab at a non profit called Think Wild and it's in Bend in Oregon where I live. And in between seasons with the forest service, I always had to try to find some other work. Anybody that's listening that's worked seasonal jobs like you guys get it. It's. You got to find something and you want something fulfilling because it's really depressing going. Nothing wrong with being a barista. I did that for years. But it was like so depressing going from working out in the woods all day all summer to just being indoors dealing with cranky old people all day. I was just like, this sucks. So I finally was like, okay, there's this rehab wildlife rehab center. Why Not I'll apply. And they had an internship program. And I was like, sure. And I went for it. And then they. They chose me to. To come on as an intern. And then later they hired me as a rehabilitation technician. Oh, no, sorry. Let me say that again. So I volunteered there as an intern, and then they hired me as the wildlife education assistant. And so I went to schools and taught kids about wildlife and, like, especially about local wildlife. I went to the Warm Springs tribe, their elementary school, and then Madras. They have a really high Hispanic population. So it was like, we're trying to get to these demographics that are often overlooked. Especially Oregon is so incredibly Caucasian. So it's really good to focus on these cultures and communities that aren't and that they're very much a part of the community. So we would try to, you know, be more inclusive and go to them because a lot of times they live out in these more rural areas and they're not as able to come to Bend or to the urban areas to experience these really cool programs. So I did that. But I want to talk about when I was doing. In the internship as a rehabilitation. Rehabilitation technician. One of our patients was a porcapet. So like a baby porcupine?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Is that what they call the babies?

[Liz Crandall]

They call them. And they're so fucking cute. It's insane. And it got, like, stuck in between these people's fence. Somebody's dog was, like, trying to, like, mouth it. And dog got quills. They don't shoot their quills.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Be a happy story.

[Liz Crandall]

I know. It gets better and it's a good ending. So anyways, I mean, this is the reality of, like, humans living around wildlife.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It's like the plot of Homeward Bound,

[Liz Crandall]

except, yeah, that dog was a bit more aggressive. But they don't shoot their quills. I wanted to point that out because they. They can't do that. But if you touch them, it'll come out and then it'll stick to you because they're barbed. But anyways, we had this little poor pipette, and it was just the cutest thing in the entire world. And there you also have to be careful not to have them imprint on you. So you're wearing the ghillie suits as well. Actually, most baby wildlife, you have to do that because, like, especially like corvids, like scrub jays, kind of crows, ravens, like, they're so smart. And so they'll be like, oh, humans equal.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Getting food.

[Liz Crandall]

That's my years from now.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Find me in my backyard. I'm going to have everything that can Imprinted?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I mean, it's good to be friend. Crows. You want them?

[Juliana Chauncey]

I think so too.

[Liz Crandall]

Good vibe. Yeah. But I can't condone it as a past rehabber. But you guys. Do you. But yeah. So this. This little poor cat was so cute. And it was a girl. And she would make these like, squeaky noises when she was hungry. And when you're feeding her, she's like. Like this just cutest little, like, Like, I don't know. It was insane. And we all have to be like, really quiet when we're around them because again, you don't want to be like, human noises. And we're all like, oh, my God. Like, like silent yelling to each other. Like, it's just so cute. And then she ended up being released, and it was so cute. We, like, set up this little. We call it like a soft release when they have kind of a little enclosure that's like kind of loosely enclosed. It's like a little fence with like, like kind of how you do for dogs in your yard or something, like if you're RVing. And then we had like a juniper tree there, and so she was like climbing and we're like, okay, I think she's gonna do good. But yeah, they're so cute.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It looks like a Pixar character.

[Liz Crandall]

I'm actually surprised, like, they don't have a Pixar movie with like a baby. Porcupine is the also her name.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Porcupette is just so perfect. Yeah, everything about that is perfect.

[Liz Crandall]

But it was such a happy ending. And I got to my partner and I, he came with me and we got to release her together, and that was like, so cool. So that was a happy one. We had a lot of happy stories, A lot of. Lot of wildlife makes it, which is great. So that was really fun. But yeah, I did that in between seasons working for the Forest Service. And I mean, being really well rounded and being a jack of all trades to Is super important when being outside. I mean, you guys know, like, just knowing a little bit about a lot can go a long way. And that's kind of been my life up until this point. Knowing a little bit about a lot of things.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Well, in your position with the podcast, you're picking up a lot, I'm sure even faster than you were before.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, yeah. Talking to all sorts of cool people. So my podcast, I started it in May, technically, but my first episode didn't come out until July, and I started it with another former fed who I met at the State of the union in Washington. D.C. d.C. Which was a wild experience.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You guys call each other feds.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh yeah. Like fired feds. Former feds. Yeah. I mean, I think in the context of last year, it was more common hearing that because it was what they were saying in the news too and to kind of like parrot. That made sense for coverage and people kind of going with like the, the stream of what media was saying. So it was helpful for people with context because I've had to switch up a lot of my verbiage actually to adapt.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And I pause you there before we get into like the podcast and what it is and stuff. I think the, the pre story of how you got to it helps set the stage for what it is.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So just to jump back quick, we talked about the cute animals. How do you go from working with baby animals to doing literally anything else? Why would you ever stop? And how, how did you transition from that to the field ranger work?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, well, I think because I'm. I've been a career federal employee with the forest service for nine years. I started in 2016 as a volunteer and then from 2017 to 2025, or sorry, 2023, I was a seasonal and then I finally got a permanent job in 2023. And it's. You have to climb the ladder. It takes a long time. And that's why like when all the firings happen and people were like, what's happening? Like what's going on? And you know, some people were saying like, just get another job, whatever. It's like, like it's not just a job though, because you're, it's a career path. Like you have to climb this ladder. I started as a volunteer making nothing and then going up to GS3, which is so like no money. GS4, GS5. And then I finally got to a 6 and I was making 19 an hour as a permanent employee. So you don't do it for the money. You do it because you love being outdoors and being around people and teaching them how to leave no trace and working out on trails. And I've done a lot from fire to natural resources to recreation. And I've worked on the PCT doing trail work. And yeah, it was just really rewarding, I think because that was my ultimate goal. Even though I love doing the wildlife stuff, it was incredible. It was also really sad. Like it was really hard working in that world and it's, it's definitely a lot more like medicine based than I expected because I just didn't know as much about it. But it is really heavy on the, like, you're giving them, like, the medication they need, and then, you know, if they, if they aren't going to make it, you have to, like, euthanize them, which is humane. But that was hard for me. Some people are really good at compartmentalizing, and they power through it. And we need those people because they're doing amazing work. I wasn't one of them. I was like, this is too sad. I cried every time. I was like, I can't. I'm too sensitive. So I think just it was like a combo of that. And then, I mean, I just loved working for the forest service. It's not perfect. There's a shit ton of stuff wrong with it. But I loved my people. I loved the work I did. And I had goals to climb it and to be a ranger, like a district ranger and maybe even the chief one day. Like, I really was like, this is it. Like, this is my calling. This is what I want to do. So when that was taken away, it was really hard. But yeah, it was really cool. I loved working for the forest service.

[Juliana Chauncey]

People at work supported me while I was going through treatment. By not treating me like somebody who

[Liz Crandall]

was going through treatment. Treatment sucks. Cancer sucks.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Being engaged with work really helped to, oh, I just knew I was going

[Liz Crandall]

to beat this thing.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place

[Juliana Chauncey]

for healing, learn more, and sign the

[Liz Crandall]

[e-mail] I think when you're diagnosed with cancer, you crave a semblance of normalcy and control. And so work allowed me to be me. So I think it's really important that companies stay flexible. Cancer in a diagnosis can be all consuming, but it doesn't have to be.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place

[Juliana Chauncey]

for healing, learn more, and sign the [e-mail] you mentioned the career ladder that you have to go up to get to the role that you ended at. And you talked about GSA 3 through 6. What do those mean for someone that isn't familiar with the logo? And what does each entail?

[Liz Crandall]

Thanks for asking. And I, I, that's a good reminder because we do tend to use a lot of acronyms in the federal world and especially in public lands agencies. So it's like a government salary GS and then your number is where you are on the scale. So like two. I mean, technically 01 would be the lowest. But I've only. I think the lowest GS level I met was a 2. And that's like job corps, youth core type work, I think for the most part. And then most firefighters you meet are GS3s and GS4s. It's like they're not making much. The time they make the most money is when they actually go on a fire and work an incident and are doing like a 14 day plus assignment. So yeah, it's. That's. That's what that means. And as you can climb, you can. It's easier when you become a permanent employee. It's a lot harder as a seasonal because you have to just get so much experience to qualify for the next level. So when you finally get that permanent job, you're able to kind of make that a little bit easier.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Is it purely merit based or is there politicking involved? Like is it just the amount of time that you put in or what's the. What does it look like behind the scenes to move up?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's a mixture. The unfortunate side, and this is what I meant is like it's not perfect is sometimes you'll see people in leadership positions and you're like, how the hell did you get to that? That makes no sense. A lot of times people get like promoted up to get them out of their hair, which is really frustrating.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I can't fire you.

[Liz Crandall]

So I send you up. You see it a lot in certain departments. I'm not going to throw them under the bus, but it's unfortunate and. But that's not very common. You definitely see it and you hear about it and you're like, that sucks. But most of the time that's how

[Zach Badger Davis]

we ended up with our president.

[Liz Crandall]

But yeah, most of the time it's. You are gaining more federal service so that you have that experience. You're able to. But it really depends on the job availability. That's what's another part is it's hard because I've worked the same seasonal number and same position multiple times because it's like there wasn't any openings for a higher position. I didn't have that federal service because they don't really count seasonal work. Like that's the hard part. They count your federal work. Like when I got my permanent job, I was put in a probationary. Probationary status. Which just means like your trial period, basically. It just means like we're making sure you're a good fit and if we don't like you, we can get you out easier than if you weren't in that. Which is kind of crazy because I was like, I've been here at that point for like seven years. Like, okay, but I get it. Like that's fine. So yeah, it's a bit of like openings, like what's available and then your experience. Experience. And it also really helps like who you know because like networking and like having a good reputation is super important. The good reputation especially like it's really. I know I just said like sometimes people get promoted because they suck. But honestly most of the time people get promoted because they do a really good job. And there's some really amazing folks, especially in the trails world. Those guys are like incredible. Like they've been doing it forever. You don't really get somebody that wants a high up position in trails that's never done it before, you know. So it's, it's like all this experience. That answers the question

[Juliana Chauncey]

what I was gonna ask what tips you have for someone that's working their way up, but I feel like you kind of just gave that. So pivot slightly on your path from going from 3 to 6 on this GS scale. What were like, what do you think your biggest accomplishments were? Like, what helped you get to that six and what like when you look back are the big things that you remember that you're like that? I'm proud of myself.

[Liz Crandall]

I like that. I think it's important to remind ourselves what we're proud of. So that's a great question. I think for me, I was really good at task management and just getting things done that really needed to be done. Because you'll often hear a narrative sometimes from people that don't really like the Forest Service or the feds in general. And they're like, you know, waste of tasks, tax dollars, what are they even doing? They never do anything. And it's like that's so not true. You just don't always see what we're doing. Like unless you're a thru hiker and you see a beautifully cleared section three of the pct. It's like that was because of us. Like we helped do that. And then of course we rely a lot on volunteers because trail crews are very notoriously understaffed. But yeah, I think, I think for me that. And then I don't. I've just, I've called in so many fires, like I found a lot of lightning strikes. I'm really good at working on an incident as a militia fire, which just means like my main job was not primary fire But I was red carded. So it means that I'm able to go out on a fire assignment and actually like 80 of fire camp is militia fire, not even like primary fire. It's like logistics, communications, food, beverage, sanitation, public security so much. Then often I would do public security and go and like, like reinforce parameters of like where the closure was. And a lot of times I'd find lightning strikes that way because you have to clear the public out and then you're able to kind of patrol a little bit easier. So that's been really helpful. And I think also I'm just really positive. I mean, I. I definitely have my moments where I'm not. And lately the last year it's been a little bit more that, unfortunately. But I think I'm generally like a pretty fun person to be around, especially outside. Like, I like to goof around, but I'm also like, like I said, I really like to get things done and to be proud. At the end of the day, I don't want to just twiddle my thumbs and do nothing that's not fulfilling. That's not why I want to work outside. I think that's really helpful. And I've also done a lot of leadership training, so that's been super great. Being able to learn how to manage people in a way that honors all different types of leadership styles and different types of people. You have people that are more analytical, people that are more headstrong, and people that are more amiable maybe, or kind of want more of the peacekeeping and some people that are the opposite of that. And so you have to work with all these different types of people because it's such a melting pot. So I think that was really helpful too. Gotten a lot of awards and that was great for just my track record.

[Zach Badger Davis]

What kind of awards?

[Liz Crandall]

A couple different cash awards, which is like amazing in the four servers because you don't make much. So you're like, thank you. And then also just like sometimes they'll have like cool, smoky swag and like they'll do like a end of the year kind of like soccer party where everybody gets together and like they do little speeches and awards for everybody. But it goes on your actual record too, that you were awarded for hard work. Like you exceeded expectations. You did a really good job. Like, it sounds silly, but it actually does really matter for going forward. But the cash awards were the best.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And then talk to me about the location. Like, are you assigned to a specific region? How does that aspect work?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, well, right now we still have regions, but I'm in. I was in Region 6, which is the Pacific Northwest. That's Washington State and Oregon, and specifically, I worked on the Umpqua National Forest, Willamette National Forest, and the Deschutes National Forest. And it was amazing. I love being out there. I got to be in, like, the west side of the Cascades that were just, like, lush and, like, cedar trees and, you know, beautiful flowing streams and moss and ferns. And then on the east side, you have, like, ponderos, roasted pines and huge mountains and high, you know, sagebrush step, like, high desert. And it was such a cool landscape to be able to work in all these different types of areas. So it was really pretty amazing. But, yeah, mostly I've just lived in Oregon working for the Forest Service. When I moved back there in 2015, I made that, like, my goal to get an outdoors job, and I landed with that. So, yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So, okay, we know. We know where this is going, but now that we've got the background of your seven years with them, let's slow it down a bit. When does it start going downhill? And, like, what are the vibes? And can you just, like, walk us through the nitty gritty of what happens next in a little more of a, like, slower. More detail?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. And I'm going to try to keep this not super political because I think it's important for people just to hear, like, the factual truth of what happened and not have, like, my opinions in there. So what happened was in January, once our new administration came in, it's normal for hiring freeze to happen. That's normal. Every time there's a new administration, that happens. But some stuff that wasn't normal was that, I mean, later on, the hiring freeze went way longer than it normally does, which is crazy, but they came in really hot, and they started saying, like, right off the bat, like, they were like. When they created doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, they were like, okay, we need supervisors that you need to tell us who your probationary employees are. And it started like that. And we're like, why? That's weird. You know? And again, probationary employee is somebody who's just new in their permanent role. Doesn't mean they're a bad person. It's not like a probation, but it's just like your trial period again, like I said. But. But most people make it through that. You don't really want to hire somebody permanently that you don't like. That's. It's not very common. So anyways, they wanted us to give the names, which was weird. And then slowly, things just started getting weirder and weirder and weirder. With DOGE specifically, we were getting, like, emails that made no sense. They were like, flag sender. They weren't. They didn't have a signature or like a. An opener. It was just like. It looked like spam. Like, we thought they were phishing emails. And so a bunch of us were reporting them to hr. What were they saying? Well, so one of them was titled Fork in the Road, and that's not even making this up. And the email, flag sender with the big red exclamation point, and it said, quit. Quit your job. Go on that vacation you've always wanted, and take this resignation and get paid and, yeah, leave the Forest Service, essentially, is what it said. And all of us, like, we were like, laughing, like, what is this? It's so strange. And then we finally figured out, oh, this is coming from Doge, because again, it wasn't signed. And then finally opm, which is the Office of Personnel Management, which is basically like the federal HR of our government, they were finally saying, like, oh, it's from opm. And we're like, okay. And then they sent me more. And then they said they sent this really long one with like, four pillars. And it was like saying, like, the four pillars of the government. And like, I don't know, it was just so. Again, it was like, so spammy.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I want more of these emails. Tell me more about the emails.

[Liz Crandall]

I know. I feel like it's a little fuzzy now because it's been a while, but I've talked about it enough that I remember the basics. And, yeah, like, there. There was just some weird stuff in there. And then, so basically we realized that this was actually legit. So they were literally asking people to quit their job and they'll pay you out for, I think it was like, eight months. Like, we'll pay you for eight months if you just quit now. We'll pay you to do nothing. Which is so weird to me because you hear people say, like, my tax dollars are being wasted. I'm like, that's. That is what I would consider a waste of taxes. Like, what do you mean? So that happened, and a few people took it, but most of us were like, this isn't legit, because Congress hadn't even allocated the funds to go towards that yet. So they were literally offering something that didn't exist. And so some people, like I said, took it, but most people didn't. So then they came back and they were pissed, and they were like, not enough of you took this. You guys need to take this. And then again, it was like, go on that vacation you want. We're like, what is. What the hell? And so then we started getting kind of, like, a little sweaty because we're like, this is. This is, like, starting to feel a little hot, hostile. Like, now we're starting to feel like this isn't as funny anymore. Now this is getting, like, kind of creepy and weird.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And so was there anything personalized to the Forest Service, or is this just all federal employees?

[Liz Crandall]

That's a good question. I think it was blanketed to a bunch of different agencies. So, yeah, it wasn't just to the Forest Service.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It's personalized to the person's vacation search history.

[Liz Crandall]

So she's getting like, a thumbnail of the at. They have like, an ad on the bottom of, like, they saw that you recently looked up a flight to Greece. So yours is customized. I know it was. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Like I said, many laughs over that, but also a lot of, like, what the. Is going on?

[Zach Badger Davis]

And what's the email, though? Is this, like, something. [e-mail] or, like, what's the edu.

[Liz Crandall]

I can't remember. Well, I mean, at that point, who knows? But, no, I think it came from. I think it came from just like, a. Yeah, like a.gov. i think it was from OPM, their server. I can't remember now, but I'm sure if I looked it up, I could find it. But, yeah. And so then after that, you know, it closed because. And they. They kept extending the period of it being open because they're like, we need more of you to take this. We need more of you to take this. And while this is happening, they're still saying, like, tell us who your probationary employees are. So again, it's like, all of this is happening simultaneously in, like, a month maybe. And so then when February came in, that's when we started getting word that they were going to fire probationary employees. And we're like, what do you mean? And they're like, nothing's official yet. Like, nobody knew anything. Like, our supervisors, like, we have no idea. Calling hr. They're like, we have no idea. Which is based in Albuquerque. It's like our whole. The USDA, U.S. forest Service, HR is there. And, yeah, they didn't know. And I was like, if you guys don't know what is happening, how does no one know? And it's because all of that was being done in D.C. by Doge. Like, they weren't Communicating that with anybody. And they did that for a reason. Because they didn't want people to start, like, you know, kind of going against it. So that's why they came in hot all at once. And so they. They came out on February 14, all the probationary employees got this email that said, based on your performance, you are no longer considered public interest. And basically, like, you're fired performance. And. Yeah, and. Which made no sense because. And it was blanket again, like, there was no. There's no personalization.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah.

[Liz Crandall]

And Anna was on President's Day weekend, so, like, it was on a Friday that they did that. And then I actually didn't get my phone call and email till Saturday. I was like, at Planet Fitness showering, and I got out and I had a mission missed call. And I just knew. I was like, oh, my God, I'm getting fired, aren't I? And my supervisor, she. She was like, yeah, I'm so sorry. And, like, she was crying. Like, I mean, it was crazy. I just felt, like, all these emotions, like, of disbelief, like. Like the waves of grief, you know, it's like disbelief, anger, confusion, sadness. I definitely had whiskey, like, the next day. That's the phrase. Actually, no, I had a whole bottle of wine to myself. That's what I did. And I called, like, all my clothes, closest friends, just, like, drunk crying to them. You know, I had to get it out. That was like eight months pay, too.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Or was it like, you don't get that anymore? No.

[Liz Crandall]

So I think that was the thing is they're like, we want you guys to take this. Or else, like, the looming threat is like, you could get fired. But again, I didn't trust it because nothing was allocated. So I was like, there's no way. And also, I wouldn't have taken it anyways because I was like, the idea,

[Zach Badger Davis]

if you take that, then you also don't collect unemployment, I believe.

[Liz Crandall]

So that was like a whole other thing because once they fired everybody, you know, it was like thousands of people from each agency. So there was the National Park Service, the U.S. forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. fish and Wildlife Service. And then there was other agencies that weren't public land space that went through that as well. Like, you know, Institute of Health, Institute of Health, and noaa. There's our weather. Just a bunch of agencies that do such important work. And yeah, all these people. So everybody's, like, gunning for unemployment at that point. I couldn't get it. Like, I couldn't get in. And they gave me the wrong L number and I was just like, all right. Looking for a job, I guess. But, yeah, it was super weird. And then, you know, people, when I went in the office, this is, like, crazy, because the district I worked on, on the Deschutes National Forest, like, we had a pretty big district. Like, we were in the supervisor's office, the. SO as we call it. And there are a lot of people there. And it's very misunderstood mix, like, politically, culturally. Like, we have a lot of different types of people there. And that's a preference or that's setting up. Because going in, literally everyone was crying. Like, even the conservative OHV guy that, you know, supported this administration and stuff, you know, and even he was like, this is so up. I'm so sorry. Like, we had no idea this was going to happen. I was like, yeah, it sucks. And I think seeing everybody crumbling around me, because it was really emotional. I think it actually, like I said, I had my wine night. I had to do that after that. And then just seeing everybody not okay weirdly motivated me to be okay and to fight and do something. I think it comes from growing up in kind of a traumatic household is like, you see chaos, and you just kind of have to be the stable one, because if you're not, no one is. So I think that intuition just kind of kicked in, and I was like, all right, I gotta do something. And like I said, like, I loved working out in the woods. I just kind of kept my head down, worked as a field ranger, you know, in the backcountry, and just made sure people weren't, like, overstaying 14 days, weren't leaving abandoned fires, picking up trash dumps, talking to the public to. All of a sudden, now I'm an activist. It was so weird and kind of scary at first because as a fed, you know, as a federal worker, that's ingrained in you to not talk to the news. Like, you don't. You're always representing the Forest Service or whatever agency you're working for. You don't do that, you know? But I had to fight against that. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna stand up for you guys. Like, we're gonna do something. So. And then after that, I mean, I'm just. I'm not talking about me anymore, just the whole thing. They offered the deferred resignation program later, which they did allocate funds for. And a lot of people took that because I think a lot of people were really scared they were also going to get fired, which was valid because they did rif, which is a reduction in force, more people. And it was. A lot of it went unannounced. A lot of it wasn't in the news. Like, I know somebody who was a probationary employee who was fired and then rehired and it fired again. And she was the only front desk worker for a ranger district. Now the fisheries guy is working the front desk. That doesn't make sense. So, yeah, it was a wild year. And if there's anything else you want to know, I'm happy to answer, but that's the gist.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Is there any optimism amongst your former employees that with a new administration, your job could be there waiting for you again?

[Liz Crandall]

I think some people are really hopeful that things will get better because each administration is so different. And I think depending on who we have, if they are more pro public lands and more protective of federal workers, I think people will feel more drawn to go back if they're not there anymore or they were thinking about going and then they decided not to. Because I talked to people that are still in school, and they're like, like, should I change my degree? Should I not do natural resources? I'm like, no, no, keep doing it. Like, this isn't going to be forever. I think that's another thing, too, is that I'm talking about a lot of stuff that's, like, kind of heavy and, like, very depressing. But honestly, like, it's joy that's going to get us through it. And I think that's, like, a really great form of resistance to the stuff that's happening. So it's really important for us to look ahead and to think, like, there will be better days. And what we do now is really important for getting there. And so that's kind of been my focus is, like, shifting it away from the, like, this fucking sucks. Like, what do we do? Narrative to, like, okay, yeah, this sucks. Like, let's do something, and let's, like, come together and talk about it and also just celebrate the cool stuff that we do that deserves more support. So that's. Yeah. Where I'm at.

[Juliana Chauncey]

How fast or slow is that transition? Like, from going from the shock of losing the job to the realization of I want to do something, maybe somewhere in there, like, you know, writing it in your burn book and being like, this sucks, to actually putting yourself on air and then finding some success in it. Like, how fast or slow was that process?

[Liz Crandall]

It was so fast. Like, alarmingly fast. It was weird. Like I said. I was like, this is strange. Like, what do I do? And it was interesting. Because, again, like, nobody, a lot of people weren't speaking up. This is when Signal became, like, a big thing for me, at least. I'd never had it before Signal, the app, and because it's, like, uncrypted, or so they say. So a lot of people were using that. We had, like, all these, like, fired federal worker threads, fired ranger threads that were saying, like, hey, this person from NPR wants to talk to somebody who wants it Crickets. People would be like, ah. I'm like, this, you know, who wants to do a live cnn? And everyone's like, hell, no. And so I just saw, like, all these opportunities that weren't being taken. And I don't blame them. I'm like, I don't blame you at all. That is scary. And if. Especially if you're in a mental state where you're not okay, that's like. I mean, I don't think they should like you. They don't want to misrepresent or fumble, you know? So I just was like, it. I'll do it. Like, sure, I'll take it. Give me live cnn. Who cares?

[Zach Badger Davis]

So you were on live cnn?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, CNN International. That was. Yeah. And then I was on a German one as well, which was. I was like, thank you for caring.

[Zach Badger Davis]

So this is easy for you, is what you're saying.

[Liz Crandall]

It became easier. I've always been good at public speaking, and I'm really comfortable. I'm pretty extroverted, and I'm very comfortable, like, expressing things to people that I'm passionate about. So. So I think it was just a little, like, scary at first because I wasn't sure what direction the news was going to take it because I was hearing from some people. I think a lot of people were just really confused, and that's what motivated me. I was like, let's just, like, clear up the misinformation because I was getting people, like, I posted on my Instagram like, I'm fired.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Fed.

[Liz Crandall]

This is what happened. I worked for forest Service, blah, blah, everything I told you guys. And then, you know, people would comment and be like, but you were probationary, so that means, like, you were not a good employee anyways. And I was like, no, that's not what that means. Like, so I was like, okay, I think this is just really complicated. And this is weird. This is, like, never happened before, and I have enough federal experience, and I was caught in the crosshairs, and I'm like, somewhat weirdly okay. Like, I wasn't okay. But, you know, I mean, it was like doing Good. Like, I can. I can do this. So I was like, okay, I'm just gonna start, like, correcting the misinformation. So that was the motivator, was just doing that. And so it made it easier because it's like, it flows naturally. Like, I love talking about what I did, you know, I. I really care about those people, even the ones I didn't really like. I'm like, I still want to protect you. Like, even though we didn't see eye to eye personally, like, you still didn't deserve to just be thrown out like that. That's crazy. So it was important to do that, and. Yeah, it was. It became pretty easy. And I just, like, gobbled them up. Like, people were just throwing them at me at that point. Like, you'll take it, like, here's the random KGW5L plus whatever from somewhere in Montana. I'm like, sure, let's do it. Like, whatever. So, yeah, and I passed it to other people, too. Like, I tried to kind of, like, gently nudge people into it. Like, it's not that bad. They need to hear from other people than just me. Like, I don't want to hug. Not doing this for the spotlight. I'm doing this for awareness. But, like, we need to get more of us, like, slowly. Like, come, my children. You can do it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Did you take any sort of media training or anything?

[Liz Crandall]

No. Probably should have, maybe?

[Zach Badger Davis]

No.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You mentioned misrepresenting something in passing, but what is it like for you in this transition, starting to take these with the weight of. This is my experience, so this is what I went through, but I'm representing all these people that went through it, and they might have different experiences, gone through different things. And what I say on these public places represents all of, like, how did you handle the pressure of living up to that and not misrepresenting the voices?

[Liz Crandall]

I feel so seen with that question, because that's something I really had to go through. It was. Because that's the pressure, right? It's like, I'm not just here for myself. Like, I have all these voices and people behind me, and it was pretty emotional, and especially for the first few months, because I'm still, like, processing while I'm trying to spread awareness and to create, you know, more space for, like, what actually happened in the truth and to, you know, fix those misnomers and. And, yeah, I think when I first went to D.C. because I went to. So I got invited to the State of the Union, which is a big deal. It's also called the Joint Address because it was not a traditional State of the Union that our president did last year. And it was because my representative, my congresswoman from. For Oregon's 5th district, she saw me on the news, and so she wanted to take a fired federal worker to the joint address, and so she chose me. And then another friend, colleague of mine went with a senator, and I met a bunch of other former federal workers that were there as well with their representative or senator for that same reason. I think it was just to, like, show solidarity for, like, support these people or whatever. And when I went there, it was. I had these, like, packets of all these different probationary employee stories because I asked people, like, send me your story. Like, what. Who are you? You don't have to say your name, but where did you work? What did you do? And what does it mean now that you're gone? And, like, there is really powerful, like, people, like, a ton of trails people, man. Like, so, because we got a bunch of, like, magic funding in 2023, and a bunch of, like, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, like, a bunch of us got permanent jobs for, like, trail crews. And that's, again, that's so needed. I know your listeners know that more than anybody, probably, how. How important that is for safety and for ease, you know, for lack of a better term. And so a lot of those folks were wilderness, especially wilderness trails folks. And so I had all these people send me their stories. And so when I gave those, I gave them to, like, any senator that would listen to me, any congresswoman, congressman. I was like. I was like, please take this. Like, I. Like, this really matters. Like, I gave one to, like, Elizabeth Warren. And like, anybody that there was like, this, like, what's it called? Like, reception before it. And there's just like, all these, like, it was like a fever dream. It was so weird. Like, all these. I'm like, you guys are real.

[Juliana Chauncey]

What?

[Liz Crandall]

All these politicians in one room. I almost knocked Nancy Pelosi over. I didn't see her. She's so tiny. I, like, turned around really fast and she was like, ah. I was like, I'm so. God, Nancy Pelosi, I'm so sorry. But, yeah, like, just handing it out to anybody, Republican and Democrat and Independent. Like, I didn't pick and choose. It's like, hey, you. You're a politician. Here you go. And that was hard because anytime somebody would stop to, like, really ask me about it, I would, like, kind of start crying. And I hated that because I was like, no, like, I gotta be. Gotta be tough. And then the Second time I went to D.C. was in June last year. Earth justice flew me out. And it was kind of funny because it was all these like environmental organ, like non profits. And then me. And when I showed up, they're like, what's your org? I was like, just me. They're like, what do you mean? It's like fired, fed. And they're like, okay. So I was the only voice for that. And this whole fly in and yeah, that was hard. Like trying to talk in front of this whole. All the orgs that they were very empathetic to. You know, it's like, sorry, I'm kind of all over the place. But I think a big issue you'll see in the federal world, especially with land agencies, land management agencies, is that sometimes there's like non profit orgs and the feds that like butt heads and they don't like, you know, they'll have disagreements, especially with like logging projects and you know, things like that. Which makes sense. Like I, I'm very environmentally focused and there's a lot of things that some of our agencies do that I don't like, including the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, like, pretty outspoken about that. But anyway, you get like these issues all the time. So I was really nervous to talk to all these people. I'm like, are they gonna care? Are they gonna be like, good, we don't like you. And they were so kind and like so empathetic. And I was just bawling because they were so nice. I didn't expect it. Now fast forwarding it, I can talk about it without crying. And I'm like, it's, it's more of like the story now as opposed to the reality that it was during that time.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You mentioned in your answer there that there are some things that the U.S. forest Service and Bureau of Land Management did that you didn't agree with. What are some of those things?

[Liz Crandall]

I think there's a bit too much of a myth poured into the extraction piece being needed more than it actually is. Especially looking at timber. I mean, it's such a hot topic and don't come for me listeners that are big timber dudes, like, I respect you, it's fine. Like, I know we need wood. I helped work in like fuels reduction projects with fire. Like I've done that stuff and I get it. But it's also really important to honor the wildlife that's inhabiting those areas. It's important to make sure you're not taking anything that's old growth. It's Important to utilize the landscape to where it's mutually beneficial as opposed to just one sided where you see like clear cuts and it's just disgusting to me. It's so bad for the soil, it's bad for the water, bad for the wildlife. It's not good for us because we're part of the land. I think a lot of people forget that. So that's something that I struggled with sometimes was seeing some of those timber sales, especially on the. Those private lots that are like grandfathered in in Oregon because they just don't do as well with the natural resource mitigation as they should. But I don't want to blanket it because there's some folks out there that are doing a decent job, but there's some that aren't. And so seeing the ones that weren't was rather difficult sometimes then with Bureau of Land Management, I mean, the people that work there, it's not their fault. Like they're, you know, just doing their job. It's, it's coming from up top. It's from leadership. Whoever's working in the Department of Interior which oversees BLM and you know, Department of Agriculture that oversees Forest Service, it's those guys making those decisions. So I think that's important to note that yes, there's things with those agencies I disagree with, but it's because of those folks that are leading it, like in this administration specifically. There's some things they're doing that I don't like, like rescinding the road. This rule. I think that's a terrible idea. Most fires start by roads. I mean, like 75% of fires start by a road. So why would you put more roads?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, what's the roadless rule for people that don't know?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, roadless rule. It was started in 2001 under the Clinton administration. And it makes it so that it, it saves these areas under Forest Service that aren't allowed to have roads through them. So it's mainly like you can't log in here because. Because you don't need roads for travel. It's. There's. These areas are very wild. They're very similar to wilderness. They're usually like pretty rugged terrain. Like an example by bend would be like Paulina Lakes and Newberry Caldera. That's just like lava rock. So it's just this big rocky, you know, it really unforgiving terrain. So like, obviously you don't want to put roads through that. It doesn't make sense. You'd have to blast the hell out of it and that's not worth it. Anyways, it's. I think the target was that they're saying it's for logging, you know, to, to not be able to log in there because a lot of those areas have our drinking water like a lot of road. This areas do. In Bend, our drinking water is in a road. This area. The Tumalo Reservoir or not reservoir. The Tumlo. I'm not gonna say. I don't remember what it's called. Anyways, our drinking water is in one of those. In a roadless area. Yeah. And they're really important. They're. They're just, I mean we have so much habitat fragmentation for wildlife. So those areas really help keep them safe and yeah, so that's a big thing. But yeah, most fires start by roads and some people will argue if you put roads in there you're able to go fight fire easier. But we have smoke jumpers, we have air tankers, we have people that work on wilderness or sorry, what's it called? Wfm, what is that? We have people that will hike in to fight fires and Wildland fire module. Yep. Wildland fire modules. Yeah, they'll go in and like they're like a hand crew and we'll. So we have the resources to do that. So I think focusing on funding and supporting firefighters is more important than taking out, you know, making roads in the sake. For the sake of like fire. So that, that argument doesn't make sense but because those roads are just logging roads which are not safe. They're not, they're meant to be one time use. They're not meant to be sustainable.

[Zach Badger Davis]

When you say roads cost cause most fires, what specifically is causing them?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, so yeah, like I think Chance mentioned it, chains from cars, exhaust pipes, There's a lot of it has to do with vehicles, but it also has to do with people camping and abandoned campfires. Like when I work for the forest service I put out well over 50 abandoned campfires in my time. Like that at least that's being generous. Like it's way more. That's not surprising. Yeah, and so it's just. Yeah, I mean that's just. There's lightning strikes of course that happen in roadless areas. But fire is not a bad thing. We're meant to have fire. We're supposed to utilize it as a tool as opposed to seeing it as this villainous evil thing. Obviously if it's near LA and it's threatening all these homes. Yeah, put it out as soon as you can. But if it's in this wild Area where fire is meant to be a friend. And that's okay. I think people like get too scared of it sometimes. I think it needs to be more respected.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. Okay.

[Liz Crandall]

Sorry, I feel like I was all over the place.

[Zach Badger Davis]

No, no, that's good. I want to make sure we're at the point in the timeline now where it makes sense to transition back to your podcast. Does that make sense or is there more of the story that we should cover before we get there?

[Liz Crandall]

No, I think that's good.

[Zach Badger Davis]

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[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, so at the State of the Union I met another former federal worker and she and I hit it off. And a few months later I had thought about it'd be so cool to have a podcast to help like dispel the misinformation in a more storytelling way, which I think people listen to more than just like, like facts and figures and you should care, you know, kind of thing. So I was like, that'd be cool. And like Maybe we could interview some cool people and, you know, just talk about what it was like being a ranger and being in the woods outdoors. Because there's a lot of, like, amazing outdoors podcasts.

[Juliana Chauncey]

But I was like, I don't feel

[Liz Crandall]

like that's been done yet. Like, it's kind of niche, like, what we'd be doing. So I asked her if she was interested and she said yes. And then my partner came up with the name. And then I made the intro music because I play guitar and I sing, so I made that. And then she did the art originally, but I have a new artist now, and she And I did 30 episodes together. And then she had to leave in January. She just didn't have time to do it anymore. She wasn't around, so I took it over. And I love doing it. It's so fun. My crown jewel guest was Ken Burges.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I was gonna ask about him.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Literally about to ask about him.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That's crazy.

[Liz Crandall]

I know.

[Juliana Chauncey]

How was he?

[Zach Badger Davis]

What's his email address?

[Liz Crandall]

I gotta tell you.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Pass. I will stay longer.

[Liz Crandall]

I gotta tell you how I got him because it's kind of funny. So I. I think this was like, right after starting the podcast, like in July, I was like, oh, God. You know, it'd be so cool to get Ken Burns. He did that documentary, you know, National Parks, America's best ideas, literally all of them.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I know every documentary.

[Liz Crandall]

He's amazing and he's so intelligent and he's so well spoken. And I was like, God, he'd be so cool to have on. Like, I don't know, maybe I'll try to find him and email him or something. And so I went to his website and I found a couple different emails. I just emailed both of them and I didn't think anything of it. I was like, yeah, right, you know, whatever. But we'll see. You know, a girl can dream. Like, why not? And like I said, I think I. I think we had like three episodes out at that point maybe. And then his agent gets back to us pretty quickly. Well, to me, because I was the one emailing. And he's like, yeah, Ken would love to do this. I was like, what? Are you sure? Me? Like, what do you mean? And yeah, he's like, yeah, Ken loves talking about national parks, so. Right up his alley. But it happened to be perfect timing because I didn't know that he had just finished the American Revolution, which is his most recent documentary that came out in November. And it goes with that book I

[Juliana Chauncey]

have, the coffee table book.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. And so I didn't realize that they were actively looking for media inquiries at that time. And the pitch that I gave, he said that Ken really liked. Liked. So it was like a. Honestly, just, like, right time and good wording. And then when we met him, it was so funny because I'm still getting to know, like, the podcast world and, like, my gear and, you know, the recording service, and it was just, like, kind of messy. But it was so funny, too, because he comes on because it's all remote, that I do the podcast remotely, and he pops up and I'm just like, like, staring at him, and he goes, are we gonna start? Yes, sir. I'm so sorry. You're the professional. Of course. Yes. And, yeah, he was great. He was so nice. I told him I wished he was my grandpa, and, you know, thank God he laughed. And that reminds me of when we

[Zach Badger Davis]

got Kevin Nealon, because that was almost immediate, like, and that was. We were qualified. Yeah. We were a year into the podcast, maybe at that point. Not quite as novice as you were at that point. Point. But, yeah, the response was immediate. And, like, we were both shocked by it.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. I think it's so cool.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Is the moral of the story.

[Liz Crandall]

You should. That's a great moral. You should shoot your shot. And, like, who the worst that happens is, they just don't get you back, which has happened a lot to me.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I think you get so big. You get so big at one point, I think with Kevin Nealon and with Ken Burns, I think that overlap flows through.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Maybe Kevin's are just outgoing.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Maybe. I mean, he's a Ken Ken.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Maybe K A K e's are.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. And then. But I think that they get to the point of being so big that. That something stupid like recording with us in the back of a van for Kevin Nealon, like, it's. It's, like, endearing. It's like.

[Liz Crandall]

I think that's how it was.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Stupid like that in a while.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, I think he was like. I think he's just, like, talked so much about, like, his other docs that he's had that, like, going back in time to the national parks was like. And especially with, like, what was happening last year, I think it was, again, just perfect timing. I think he was like, hell, yeah, let's talk about parks. And he loved it. He was like, like, so into it. And I just, like, let him go off. I was like.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And you had him for about an hour, right?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. It's not like a quick little chat That's.

[Liz Crandall]

Well, it was funny because they originally said a half hour, and I begged for 45 minutes, and then it went to an hour. So, yes, you should try lying.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, we do that to every guest. We tell them it's going to be an hour to an hour and a half. And like, we told you, the last episode was five hours.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, we were just basically, like. The only advantage I have, though, is they can click goodbye.

[Zach Badger Davis]

We chain you to the desk here.

[Juliana Chauncey]

We know the pros and cons of recording remote very well here.

[Liz Crandall]

Currently processing. I'm really trying to get Nick Offerman. He's my next. So are we.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh, my God. Yeah, we've been scamming the shit out of him.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, me too.

[Zach Badger Davis]

We've gotten through to his press people,

[Juliana Chauncey]

but I just want to talk to him about that episode of the Last of Us, because that made me so.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, my God, it was so hard.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And I really want to watch his new gardening show.

[Liz Crandall]

Have you seen it yet?

[Juliana Chauncey]

He's got a gardening show where he just talks about vegetable gardening and how

[Liz Crandall]

that's just, like, what brings him joy these days. So he. I saw his stand up. He came to Salem, Oregon, which was random. Was like, who paid you to go to Salem? Because he didn't go anywhere else there. Like, not Portland or Bend or Eugene. Like, Salem, Oregon. I was like, okay. So I went there to go see him, and it was great. It's like he played music and, you know, he's like, raunchy humor. I just. I love it. It was so good. And I harassed him. His merch girl. Would he want to be on my podcast? She's like, maybe. I don't know. Give me your card. I was like, okay, so one day.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's the way to get it done.

[Zach Badger Davis]

So what were some of the biggest takeaways from your interview with Ken Burns?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Why?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Do I sound weird?

[Liz Crandall]

I think one of the biggest takeaways with Ken Burns is the fact that our national parks are so important for more reasons than just they're beautiful. Like, he talks about the history and how specifically history is just. Just so insanely crucial to understand, because as he. As he quoted Mark Twain, history doesn't repeat itself. It rhymes. And so we're seeing, like, obviously not the exact same situation with the same exact people, but we're seeing, like, really similar type of narratives. Like, let's get rid of history because we don't like it, which is wrong. Hugely wrong. I think that you can't truly love something if you don't know everything. About it. That's like getting in a relationship with someone and you don't know any of their bad side. Like, hell no. You're gonna find that out later in a really terrible way and then be totally blindsided. It's good to just know everything and like, you don't have to like it and you shouldn't like it because a lot of our history in our national parks is pretty grotesque, especially against indigenous people. So I think that was something that he talked about that I really found reassuring in the way he was talking about it. Just of like, we need history to be preserved, not get rid of it. Because this was at the time where they had those QR codes up at national parks that leadership like Doug Burgum, the interior Secretary, put up for people to report, like, history that they thought was unamerican or whatever, basically meaning, like non Caucasian, non colonizer type stuff. So that was good timing for us to talk about it. And so that was really cool, I think. Another thing, and I don't know, I have half agree and I half kind of question it, but he talks about, you know, like, we've been so much worse in the past. Like, times are not nearly as bad as they used to be. And I agree with a lot of specific situations that I can think of for sure. Like there's definitely things we don't have going on today that we used to that were absolutely atrocious, but we still have things that are pretty bad. And so I think it's important to remember, like. Like we've come a long way historically, but there's still new battles to face that could be bad. So it's like you can have two truths at once.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I think I was just thinking that when you said that. Both can be true.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

What are some of the top remaining battles, in your opinion?

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, man. In this country. I mean, I think that, that, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion, DEI was a big hot topic last year and we saw like a weird shift in people being really against it all of a sudden. Like, there's always been grumbles from people that had issues with it, whatever, but it turned into like a full blown war against it. And I think a lot of people don't even fully understand that DEI doesn't just serve people who are Ms. Who are underrepresented, serves all of us.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Like, do you think it was like a loud minority that was the shift? Or do you think that it was just. Just like people coming out of the woodworks that hadn't spoken against it, that then didn't want it.

[Liz Crandall]

I think both, I think, I think. I think there's more people feeling more comfortable to express a lot more hateful rhetoric than there have been before under other administrations. I think that this administration is very, you know, one could say this is positive, one could say this is negative. But they're very, very blunt and they're very unfiltered and sensational and shocking and they like say what's on their mind, you know, and like, some people love that because they're like, oh, it's real. But then others see it as like, this is dangerous and this doesn't set a good example for what leadership should be doing and saying. And so that's where I think the people coming out of the woodworks are feeling more comfortable to be more vocal. And then I do think there was definitely more of a minority, louder group that was very much against it. But again, I think it goes with the woodworks. I think they joined that. So yeah, I think it's unfortunate. There's like a couple things I can specifically name that went away that was really unfortunate. Like women of wildfire. There's like a group for women and non binary trans folks that can get together that, you know, fires a male dominated area to work. And that was really nice to have your like, support of like, you know, you just get to like vent and hang out with your ladies and you know, just have a good time. And it's like so like reassuring and fulfilling, like, oh, and validating. Like we all have these similar problems and. But we also have like some similar joys and like, that was really cool. And then we had the Civil Rights Committee that helped people. Like, I was the special emphasis program manager for individuals with disabilities. So I help people with disabilities apply for jobs in the Forest Service and get promotions and like help them navigate the paperwork. That's really tedious and weird and like all the different like verbiage and terms and all that stuff just went away. And so. And that's just the Forest Service. That was just my little bubble. Like it goes so much bigger than that. And I think that was. That's one that I'm hoping can get reversed and fine tuned. I don't think it was perfect, obviously, like, but I think that it was better than not having that kind of support.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Here's a question that is intentionally probably going to be triggering for someone like me. I work from home. I come from a, you know, certain amount of privilege compared to other people. Probably suffer less than the average person. I live a comfortable life Again, work from home. Probably a lot of people like me in the country. And so if I didn't ever turn on technology and I was like disconnected from everything kind of person, I wouldn't maybe see a lot of the impact of this in my day to day. I still don't. I mean, I go on the Internet,

[Liz Crandall]

but I still don't.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I see it talked about, but it hasn't affected my day to day. How frustrating is it for you to like be living this reality to the extent that you have taken on this role as an advocate for it? And there are people in positions like mine that just like, don't even notice that anything's changed.

[Liz Crandall]

I don't feel frustrated. I think the only time I would feel frustrated from it is if they like some. Let's just use you an example. If you were to say, like, you did learn about this stuff happening and somebody was like, are you willing to like, speak up or at least like, you know, sign this petition or send a public comment, whatever. Somebody like close to you or somebody who, you know, was like, hey, this affects me. This is what happened. And you learn about it and then they ask for your assistance. If you put your hands up and go, like, yeah, no, that's too much. I don't want to be involved in that. That's frustrating. Frustrating because it's like, that's like you had that chance to listen and to kind of learn something and to, you know, dip your feet in a little bit, like I think. But I also think the other side, like, I don't think, I don't think there's anything like such thing as a perfect advocate. I think that's crazy. Some people need to protect their peace and stay out of it. Some people need to be full head on in it. Some people kind of just need to come in and out, you know, just for their mental health or whatever. I don't think there's a wrong way to do that. I think it's all about your reaction, though. Once you do learn some things of like, oh, I could actually help him make a difference, but am I gonna do that? Then it's like, why not? You know, But I, I try to approach people like that with curiosity, not with judgment. Because everybody has different life situations. I don't know what you've been through. I don't know. You know, it's like, yeah, like, you know, there's the privilege piece and whatnot, but like, you've still probably suffered in your life and been through things that affect your day to day. In some. Another, whether you realize it or not, like, who am I to judge you and call you imperfect or say that you're doing something wrong? I think it's more. And I think there's people that would disagree with me in that because there's some people that are like, no, you get them to fight. Like, you do something. Like, now is this time to speak up. And I respect that opinion too. I think, like, we all are dealing with things a little bit differently. I think as long as we're willing to, like, work with each other and have patience and be curious, that's what matters. Some people are lost causes. I hate to say it, but, you know, if somebody's like, like, no, I don't want to be involved at all. Leave me the fuck alone. Then I'm like, okay, I'm not going to fuck you. Like, I'm not going to come for you. Like, that's your, you know, that's your life. But I'm also privileged, so I'm not somebody who's in like a mar. Like a very underrepresented oppressed group. So, like, this is just from my opinion, but I'm sure there's other people that would have stronger opinions about it, but.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Well, I think that's a good headspace to be in with it. Like, I think I would find the work that you do very frustrating because I would find it very hard to be. Be so passionate and in the thick of something and watch other people maybe just like it. It doesn't affect them because it hasn't gotten to the point where it affects people outside of that realm. That would be frustrating for me.

[Liz Crandall]

So I think for the work, sometimes it can be a little bit, of course, but I think recover. I recover quickly from that because I think again, like, if. If I see somebody getting, like, very upset and being, like, angry towards someone that isn't on the same page or like, you know, the situation we're talking about, I feel like I would be less likely to want to join them later on, but if I plant a seed, like, you know, that's okay. Like, do, you know, do your thing. Like, if you have any questions or you want to know more, figure out how to get involved. Like, I'm always here, like, you can come ask. And I feel like that invites people in to feel more, like, to feel less, like, anxious about it and less like, oh, are they going to yell at me? If not, perfect. Yeah. No, I don't think so. I think that's the wrong approach. Yeah, it's not my approach.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I do think that's the issue with a lot of the discourse nowadays. It's always like, someone knows. Yeah, exactly.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I dare you to tell me you disagree.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It's the least persuasive way to do anything.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I agree.

[Liz Crandall]

I don't respond to that. I'm like, all right. I think I see it as, like, I think you have some things you need to work on.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. Part of what you said, though, is also so true. And at my day job is sales. So we do this in sales, which

[Liz Crandall]

is something that's hard for when you're

[Juliana Chauncey]

prospecting, when you're trying to find new business to go after. One of the things that's hard is, you know, accepting that something might not be a good fit, even if, like,

[Liz Crandall]

interest is shown or something like that,

[Juliana Chauncey]

and unqualifying the lead and not giving them more time to move forward because it's not a good fit. And what you said about some people being lost causes, I think that's an important mindset, too, where it's like, I don't need to change every opinion. Don't waste your energy, and I don't need to force it. But if I can find someone who's willing to listen or who can be affected by it, like, that's where the wins are.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. And a lot of times you're not going to. To see the winds. You're not going to see the change. Like, there's been so many times where I've talked to people about Leave no trace in the forest, you know, people throwing banana peels out their door. I'm like, wait, those don't grow here. You know, and then sometimes they'll just be like, whatever. But then I think, like, you know, I don't know, maybe down the line they'll be a little more hesitant to do that next time, but I'll never see it. So, like, I don't know. So that's why it's so important to make sure that your approach is in a way that, like, makes people more curious about caring as opposed to just, like, turning off from it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Where do you get your validation from if the winds are invisible?

[Liz Crandall]

Wow. So deep.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I mean, I, like, I imagine the comments probably aren't always the kindest. So there's. There's got to be something that keeps you from collapsing and not doing it anymore.

[Liz Crandall]

They weren't the kindest last year. I feel like people are a bit less, like, bitey now and a bit more just, like. Like, whatever, liberal hippie, whatever. Like, it's More like that, like, how it used to be. Last year was kind of an outlier in, like, a lot of the hate I would get from folks because a lot of it was just, like, projection. It wasn't even, like, about me. It was just, like, the topic at hand. Like, you know, waste of my money, blah, blah, blah. Piece of calling me names and stuff like that. I get my validation, though, just knowing that, like, some people care and, like, see what I'm doing and appreciate it. Like, that's all that I can really focus on is like, okay, I know some people are glad I'm doing this, and so I'm gonna keep going. Like, there's. There's clearly a good vibe coming off of what I'm doing. So I know I have good intent. I know that I want people to be happy and that I want the world to be a better place. And I know some people see that, and, like, that's great. That that's what works for me. Like, I'll have people tell me, like, I'm so glad, like, someone's doing this. Like, I'll hear that all the. Like, so I'm thank God someone's doing this. And I'm like, yeah, like, that's all I need. Like, I'll keep doing it. So I think also just, like, again, like, there's people in the Forest Service I did not like, but. And, like, they're like, whatever. Like, you just want attention. Blah, blah, blah. Like, you can think that that's fine. No one said, that's my face, but gotten the vibes from, like, one or two people specifically. And I was like, no, you can think that's fine, you know, but, like, I am still doing this for you, whether you like it or not.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You said you've listened to this podcast before?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

So you're familiar with the Triple Crown segment. I'm curious to know what's the Triple Crown of your episodes or interviews, people that you've had on?

[Liz Crandall]

That's such a good question. Let me think.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And we have to take Ken Burns off. I assume that he'd be on. Maybe we do the Mount Rushmore top four he's already one of.

[Liz Crandall]

But, yeah, okay. Chuck Sams, he was the first Indigenous National Park Service director, and his last day was in January last year. And he's incredible. Just such a kind person. He's like, he believes in the rights of nature and loves nature, and he tells amazing stories from his culture. And, yeah, he's incredible. And he's really funny. He's definitely a trickster So I really like that about him. I would say the next person, honestly, like, my little sister. I've had her on twice. She's so unhinged and insane, and I love her.

[Zach Badger Davis]

What's the age difference?

[Liz Crandall]

She's two years younger than me, and she. We. I. I think it was just like I was kind of in a rut, and my sister came on. It was just me and her, and we were just dying laughing the whole time, like, she's one of the funniest

[Juliana Chauncey]

people I've ever met.

[Liz Crandall]

Met. So that's definitely a big one. And then I'd say this is hard to choose because I love everybody I've had on, so I wish I could choose everybody. But honestly, I'd say Lance Garland. He's a queer author, and he wrote a book about being in the Navy and what that was like for him. And he's the first openly gay male firefighter in Seattle. And his book is incredible. It's called Out There, and it made me cry, made me laugh. And he's just, like, such a kind person. And I love the way he, like, responds to, like, responded to my questions. And, like, me, like, I just felt really seen and heard, even though I'm the one asking the questions. I don't know if that makes sense, but he. He does this thing where he goes, yeah, and I love it. And I've started doing it, like, yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. And it's just great. So he was amazing. And I think about him all the time. Not in a weird way, but I just. He was such a nice person. So if I had to choose, that would be the.

[Juliana Chauncey]

The four.

[Liz Crandall]

But I. I mean, honestly, there's been so many good ones. I feel very, very lucky.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I think this is from your website, but that your mission statement is to find joy in a world of bad news.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Are there any specific moments, episodes, takeaways, where you feel like you're able to extract goodness from the darkness?

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, yeah. I think all the episodes. And that's my goal. I think it started out as a podcast about, you know, rangers. I talked, I interviewed a bunch of park rangers and forest service rangers, and it started more on again, like, talking about, like, I did an episode on the road, this rule and Public lands Rule, and like, the new. The USDA Forest Service organization, whatever. So I did, like, a bunch of stuff like that. And then I think especially once my previous co host left, and it was more like, okay, I can kind of, like, take this in whatever direction I want. And I started realizing Like, I think I just. I think I just need more joy. I think I got through that phase. Like, if you listen through all the episodes, you can kind of tell, like, my phases going through everything. And I was definitely a lot more, like, fired up and, like, you know, determined and pissed off and, like, just, like, just as heavy in the beginning. And then I kind of started getting a bit more, like, laid back. And then now I'm in a point where I just want to have a really good time. And I think you can have going back to two truths at once. I think you can talk about hard things and, like, tackle these issues that are not always the funnest things to talk about. And you can always find joy at the end of the day without being toxic positive. Like, you don't have to be like, like, that sucks anyways. I guess we're fine. Like, you don't have to do that. You can go, yeah, like, this situation was really hard and this is really unfortunate. And, like, we need to fight this and then go, so, you know, what's your favorite national park? Like, let's talk about the cool place. Like, you can have those two conversations in one. I think I want to show an example to people of, like, you can be informed and happy. Like, you don't have to be in a dark spiral of gloomy, like, don't just doom. Scroll on your phone all day. Like, go talk to somebody. You know, hang out with a friend. Call your parent, call your sibling, you know, whatever. Go out to your local bar, I guess, I don't know. And talk to somebody. Like, I think that you can. You can do that. And I think if you set that example for others, it's contagious. So joy, like I said, is a form of resistance. And I think it's so imperative right now that we find the joy, because that's what's going to get us through times that feel a lot harder than they've been, at least in my young life.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

How old are you?

[Liz Crandall]

I'm 33.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. You're 40.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I am 40.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Thank you for bringing that up. Thank you for just saying that. Call out the elephant in the room.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Is that supposed to be an insult? I'm not.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No. I don't know. Anytime I can point out you're old.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh, yeah.

[Liz Crandall]

I did my homework.

[Zach Badger Davis]

When I was diagnosed, all I wanted

[Juliana Chauncey]

to do was get back to work. Work.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I wanted to get back to that trajectory that I was on prior to the cancer.

[Liz Crandall]

I always felt like I had value. I had a place on the team

[Zach Badger Davis]

to just be treated with dignity.

[Liz Crandall]

It means everything.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place

[Juliana Chauncey]

for healing, learn more, and sign the

[Zach Badger Davis]

[e-mail] all right, well, we're getting somewhat close to the end of your time here, but I do have a note that you've got a pants shitting story, which is a requisite here for this podcast.

[Liz Crandall]

I was wondering if this was going to come up.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Always does.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. Gosh. I have multiple, unfortunately. Do you want. I'll give you a choice. Do you want under a bridge or in a family picnic area?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Why pick both?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, you already set yourself up, so thank you for.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Thank you for that.

[Liz Crandall]

Okay. Both were on this. No, actually, I take that back. 1. Yep. This is two different trips. Okay. So I've never threw hiked, sadly. I'm sorry.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I didn't tell anyone. We were just gonna not bring it up the whole time.

[Liz Crandall]

I'm not gonna bring it up. I know. Well, I did. Sorry, elephant. But I. When I was 19, I hitched, hitchhiked across the country, and that was kind of my through journey in a way. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I just knew I wanted to be doing something big and crazy. Like, I love Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson and Allen Ginsberg. I read a lot of these, like, beatnik era memoirs, and I was just like, God, that's so cool. And I never really saw women in them. And so I was like, I want to do something and break the mold. Whatever. I'm not ready for school. Like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And so I took off. I was living in Santa Cruz at the time and met these, like, random train hopper kids. And I was like, you can do that? And they're like, yeah. And I was like, can I come? They're like, sure.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You hopped a train?

[Liz Crandall]

I tried to hop a train.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Did you miss the train or did what it.

[Liz Crandall]

We waited forever. We were in this yard in, like, Tucson, and we were waiting for days and days and days, and we had what's called a crew change, which is like the train hopper bible. It's like they make a different version every year. At least this was back then. This was 2011. So I don't know what they do anymore more, but. Or 2012. And the crew change tells you, like, each. I don't know if I'm going to get, like, no One watches this. Like, the train offers come for me. Like, don't talk about the crew change. But anyways, we had this schedule, so we knew, like, the train was supposed to come, whatever, and so we're waiting forever. Finally, it stops. But it's. The only cars that we could have gotten on are called, like, suicide cars. That's for a reason. Because they're, like, the same big square with, like, a hole in the middle, and you're supposed to, like, kind of wedge yourself in and hope you don't, like, fall out. And I was just like, no, I'm not doing that. And they're like, come on, it's the only one available. I was like, I'm not doing that.

[Juliana Chauncey]

They all got on it.

[Liz Crandall]

They tried. They tried to get me to go. I was like, no.

[Juliana Chauncey]

But they went.

[Liz Crandall]

They got off because I was freaking out. But anyway, so this was the trip, and I hitchhiked all the way from Santa Cruz to New Orleans and did it for a few months. Met some of the crazy, scary actors I've ever met in my life on that trip. Like I said, I was only 19, but I made a really horrible mistake. I drank tap water in SoCal, like, in LA from, like, a McDonald's bathroom. This is diabolical. There's a fountain.

[Juliana Chauncey]

There's a soda fountain. Why would you do that?

[Liz Crandall]

I was dumb. There's a water button on your soda fountain. I know. I wish you were there.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I wish I was, too, to guide you.

[Liz Crandall]

It was terrible. And so. So I definitely got giardia, like, bad. And I was in San Diego, in OB Ocean beach, and wait, hanging out with this, like, school bus full of, like, hippie kids that were like, yeah, we'll take you to court site with us and, like, just hang out for a few days. And then that's when the giardia came on. And I was like, oh, no. And we were out near Balboa Park, I think, and there was this, like, you know those, like, picnic overhangs? A pavilion. Yeah. And. And it just hit. And there's, like, no public restrooms, like, anywhere near where we were. And there was no trees. There was nowhere to hide. And so I just, like. I was like, I'm so sorry to whoever has to come clean this or what family finds this. And I just, like, blue ass.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You on the pavilion.

[Liz Crandall]

All over the pavilion. You didn't clean it. I didn't have anything.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You advocate for LNT on your podcast and you shit on a pavilion and didn't clean it?

[Liz Crandall]

I know. This is Great, Great. You know what? We gotta admit our faults. How.

[Juliana Chauncey]

How was it walking away from your pile of. On this pavilion?

[Liz Crandall]

It was literally like the worst feeling ever. It was terrible. I felt disgusting and I had somebody with me who like, had to hear the whole thing. I just. I was so mortified. I like, I said I felt terrible for that and then I just physically felt terrible and then mentally felt terrible. Like it was awful.

[Juliana Chauncey]

How often do you think about. About it?

[Liz Crandall]

More than I wish. I've been thinking about more lately. Knowing I was coming on here. I was. God damn, I'm gonna have to tell this story, aren't I?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I still can't believe you got J from tap water. Like, I know you're saying I can't believe you didn't.

[Liz Crandall]

In the sand. Well, yeah, we were on the beach at that point. We were. We were in Balboa. In the park. Yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned.

[Juliana Chauncey]

There's no. There's no like soft dirt.

[Liz Crandall]

The. This one section we happen to be. All I remember is there was like a. An old train track, trestle thing. And then there was the pavilions. And then just grass forever. There was no trees, not for a while. And I wasn't gonna make it. I was like, I'm either going right here in the open or I'm just gonna like hide in the civilian.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I wish I could be in your brain looking at the options and being like, wide field of grass.

[Liz Crandall]

I had like five seconds. Concrete pavilion.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That one.

[Liz Crandall]

I was like, whatever's gonna have me more hidden. I don't know. Because I was so mortified and like I said, I was 19. And that's what, you know, I feel like back then. I'm not excusing it. Back then at that age though, it's like you're so much more hyper aware of, like being embarrassing and, you know, I don't know, it was terrible. The other one was under a bridge in. I think I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And it was like this weird. It was. It's a long story. But anyways, I was. I was with these other like train hopping people, whatever, and we just were going through Tennessee. I was living in New Orleans at the time and went on this like trip up there and I just had to take a shit and I just like went. It was like early in the morning, like the sun was barely up. The only people that I saw there was my friends and they were like dead asleep. So I was like, I'm just going to go up on this like, hill area or whatever. There's all this ivy. I felt pretty, like, hidden. I mean, it was open. But I was like, there's no one here. As I'm like, mid, this guy is on this, like, he like, just pops over on this, like, ivy hill. And he's just staring at me. And I was just like, oh, my God. And he goes, ah. Just runs away

[Zach Badger Davis]

like he's got a story to tell.

[Liz Crandall]

Audibly screamed. And then I screamed and then I like, had. I like, instinctively like, hold my pants up. So that's my, like my pants. Pants. Like, I felt so disgusting and I was so mad because I didn't have, like.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You pulled your pants up mid. And then.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, it was like, just like, you know, reaction. Yeah. Which was a huge regret. I was like, he already saw it. I might as well just committed. But I just. Yeah, it was terrible.

[Juliana Chauncey]

When I did the Ozark Highlands Trail on my birthday, there was just. There's no. There was no one on the trail apart from us. And then my birthday, there was this one guy. We kept hopscotching and he walked past me as a. I was pants down, shitting. And as my husband says, I have the reflexes of a dead cat. So I did nothing. I just, I stayed in my squat and I just said howdy because it was like our fifth hello of the day. It's like, yep, you got me in this moment. And I don't have the reflexes to change anything right now.

[Liz Crandall]

I had a similar one on a trail. Yeah, I had a similar one where I was just like the guy. Like, I was like, oh, I didn't think anybody was here and I just had to keep going.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I will say, when it comes to poop stories on this podcast, I've always had this dream that yet has to come to fruition, but there's still time and this is a perfect opportunity. I have dreamed from the on the side of the highway stories to, like, all the different ones that we would get a follow up email podcast@the truck.com from the. From the follow up crew. That's like, oh, my God, that was my bird that she shat on, you know, or that, like, that was my bathroom at this place. I want to hear from the person that cleaned this pavilion. I want to know what you thought

[Liz Crandall]

when you came up and I want to personally apologize to them. We have yet to have that happen

[Juliana Chauncey]

where someone will write in and be

[Liz Crandall]

like, oh, my God.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I mean, we have people that listen to us on boats in the middle

[Liz Crandall]

of nowhere, you know, so, like, the

[Juliana Chauncey]

chances aren't zero know, I'm not dreaming

[Liz Crandall]

too big here, but I just hope that it's like a.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It's like a missed connection where I'm

[Liz Crandall]

like, also, Balboa park is, like, pristinely well taken care of. So it was not like, oh, it could be anyone like that.

[Juliana Chauncey]

What I would give for that email,

[Zach Badger Davis]

it probably got hosed down, like, five minutes later. You were still running away.

[Liz Crandall]

I felt so bad. Oh, it was terrible. But you know what? I think it humbles us. I got. We gotta share it. Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You don't know exactly get to pick when those shits are coming out. Unfortunately.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Y. It's not about being perfect. It's about getting better.

[Liz Crandall]

That's right.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I have a note about a piece of gear that you're obsessed with, which is something that I don't think we've ever talked about on this podcast ever.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, my God, I'm so excited to talk about this. Yes, please. I got really excited when I saw that question. Collapsible bucket. Hear me out. Don't look at me like that.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Is it to poop in?

[Liz Crandall]

No, no, it's.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Though if you had it at Balboa park, that would have been.

[Liz Crandall]

I mean, honestly, I should have had that. See, this is why I love the bucket so much. That would have come in so handy. I love it because they weigh basically nothing. They're just like these, like, collapsible little. I mean, I don't know, probably like ultralight. People are like, it weighs.

[Juliana Chauncey]

The way you're holding your hands makes it looks like. It looks like a cup.

[Liz Crandall]

It's like when you fold it up, it's like. I don't know, like. Yeah. Like the size of your palm, maybe smaller. And then you unfold it, and it's just like this. They have, like, different sizes. Foldable bucket, collapsible bucket, unfolded. I was like, I think that's a tiny pot. I like to make sandcastles. I think you have a dog bowl. This makes way more sense now. Yeah. No, I love it because it helps if you're base camping, especially because you can go down to the lake and, like, scoop it up and then filter the water up at camp if you want. I also love it for if I'm in a burn area, which I've actually have. This has happened multiple times to me, backpacking where I found morels. I was so glad I had a bucket. And then other times, like, rockhounding, if I'm out in an area, you're allowed to do that. That was really cool. To be able to collect those. Comes in handy for like bear hangs too, if you just need one really quickly. Yeah. I love my collapsible bucket and I stand by that.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Is there a go to brand?

[Liz Crandall]

Brand? I. I don't remember. I think it's. I think I just got it at like

[Juliana Chauncey]

where.

[Liz Crandall]

Have you heard of Buy Mart?

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, is that like Alibaba?

[Liz Crandall]

It's only for bi people. It's in Oregon. It's just a little like.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Wait, you mean bi bi, not B U? I.

[Liz Crandall]

No.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's funny. I know, that's really funny.

[Liz Crandall]

I love it.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Is there. Do they sell specific things?

[Liz Crandall]

They have like just a tiny little camping aisle, you know, with like Coleman's stuff. But then they have the buckets there too. And I don't remember the brand, but I've also seen it rei. So they're around. Okay. But I think it's more like a random cheap brand. Nothing fancy, but I love it. Yeah. Get a collapsible bucket, you won't regret it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And maybe we'll end with this one. Unless Thomas has got an additional question. But I have a note about potentially a scary encounter with a grizzly.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh yeah, I've had a few grizzlies and mountain lion. The mountain lion one was the most recent. That was super scary. It was last, let's see, September 2025, and I was in Mesa Verde national park and I was camping with my previous co host and she and I were at this campsite that was about like, man, like three minute walk to the bathroom. And it was dark. It was like 10:30 at night or something. And there was this, this is this. The setup matters. So there's this campsite next to us and there's a family and there's like six kids and they're all like little kids. And they had been like running back and forth from the bathroom, like in pairs, sometimes by themselves, whatever. And so then I go, after they had come back, I went towards the bathroom and I had my like jugs to fill up my water because we were car camping. So. So it was like pretty nice. And I go to the spigot and then I see. I had my headlamp and I see some like glowing eyes across the like little tiny road. So it was probably like 20ft from me. And. And I had saw a raccoon down. Back to raccoons, full circle here. I saw the raccoon, a raccoon down by our site. So I was like, oh, it's probably a raccoon. And I Walk closer. Like, stupid close.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I would have been like, good omen.

[Liz Crandall]

I. Yeah, I. I start walking closer all of a sudden, and I should have known because it was glowing yellow, and that's a sign. And then as I get closer, all of a sudden, like, it's tan face, full view, and it's, like, completely. It's crouched in, like, a predatory crouch.

[Juliana Chauncey]

How far?

[Liz Crandall]

I was probably 10ft. Yeah, it was terrible. And it was, like, from you to that wall. Yeah. And it was in this bush. Yeah, that. Yeah. Like, pretty much where me and Zakar and it was in this bush. And as soon as it came into play, I went, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. I just started, like.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Like.

[Liz Crandall]

Like hyperventilating and, like, backed away really slowly because I was like, I'm not running. At least I had that instinct. But I was just like. And then I. I backed up and went into the bathroom and just, like. Was like, what do I do? And there's no phone service. I was trying to call my friend. I was like, they're not answering. And so I just waited for, like, 20 minutes maybe. And I was like, somebody. Surely somebody's gonna come in here. Like, somebody's gonna come in here. I know. And so eventually, I was like, be brave. Be brave. And so I opened the door, and it's gone. Which, honestly, was worse. I was like, I shouldn't, but, like,

[Juliana Chauncey]

how do you know?

[Liz Crandall]

I know.

[Juliana Chauncey]

How do you know it was gone?

[Liz Crandall]

Exactly. So I. Well, I looked everywhere in that area, and I was like, I don't see it. Fuck. Where is it? And as I was walking back, there was, like, the kids. Two kids were starting to come towards me, and I was like, go back to your site. And then. Yeah, the. The next. And then I told my. I wasn't gonna tell my friend because I didn't want to freak her out because she was sleeping in a tent and I was in my car. But I was like, I feel like I gotta tell her. Like.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And as soon as hiding in your

[Juliana Chauncey]

car, friends tell friends.

[Liz Crandall]

I know. I debated, because I was like, I don't want to scare her, but I

[Zach Badger Davis]

also like red meat out there.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. So I told her, and then she, like, freaked out and slept in her car. She's like, no, I'm not staying out here. I was like, okay, I'm sorry. I'm glad I told you. Yeah. And then. Yeah. The next day, she had said. Yeah. That those kids were, like, going back and forth the whole time before you went. And so my thought is that as somebody who's experienced understanding wildlife behavior is that this was a young male lion because he wasn't super huge. And I'm assuming it was a younger male because they tend to be more brazen. I think it was stalking the kids definitely because they were running as well and they were like splitting off from each other. So I told the parents the next day in the morning I was like, don't let your kids go alone. I saw a mountain lion and they were like, oh my God. So and I told the park and they were like, we've never had a mountain lion sighting. We've always just had black bear. And I was like thousand percent was a mountain lion.

[Juliana Chauncey]

This isn't the video that I saw last night, but last night I was watching this video on repeat that came on my newsfeed because it was a car with one of those tapui tents

[Liz Crandall]

over it with the ladder and a

[Juliana Chauncey]

mountain lion went up to it sniffing and it like stood up on the ladder and its head was at the

[Liz Crandall]

tent and they're long.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I just kept replaying cuz I was like that. It looks so much bigger standing up. And so I just looked it up

[Liz Crandall]

and this isn't the same video.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I'll play it for you and then for you. But watch this, watch it when it stands. Yeah, look how tall he is next to the car.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, just easily on top of the

[Juliana Chauncey]

jeep here for you. He's.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh yeah, they're huge. Stand up again.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Hold on. How do I get this back? Watch him stand up. Just get down. Yeah, go back a little bit more.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, there you go.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Look how tall he is. That's a cheek. My head goes to there. My head goes to there. And that's where the bottom of his elbow is.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, they're huge. Yeah, it was. Honestly, I'm more scared of mountain lions than I am bears. So I've had a lot of bear encounters and I'm sure I've seen. I'm sure a lot of mountain lions have seen me. But that was my first time coming face to face with one and I was like, I prefer bears. Oh my God.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So what happened with the bear?

[Liz Crandall]

I've had a couple. When I worked in Yellowstone National park in 2015, I worked for a concession air company but I stayed in the park the whole summer right next to a National park service station. So I worked with them a lot and I. That was where I got into back to backpacking and hiking. I'd never, never been into it before. Like I always loved being outside but I was never like I'm outdoorsy until I worked there and I was like, oh, my God, I'm in love with this area. It's amazing. And my. One of my first big hikes was in Beartooth Absaroka Wilderness just outside the park in Montana. It's like past Cook City, like in Beartooth Highway. It's amazing. It's so beautiful, but it's prime grizzly country. And we found like carcasses on our way up. Like old carcasses. They weren't like, fresh, but we were like, yeah, they're around for sure. Saw their prints. We saw them like on the side of the road too. So, like, we knew they were around. Had bear spray, red bear spray. And yeah, I mean, we. We get up the trail and it was coming towards us and like, we got. We got over this like, little hill part and then this big, huge grizzly was walking towards us and it was like, like backing away, slowly yelling, like, took the safety off my bear spray. It kind of like sniffed at us and then lost interest and went down the hill. And so we were like, let's turn around. Like, I didn't like that. Again, my thinking back, now that I have experience, I'm like, I think it was probably a male that's just kind of in his territory and he was just kind of curious about us. But as we're going back, he circled back around and was curious again. And I was like, this is bad. This is so bad. And yeah, my adrenaline had never been so high and you could like almost smell it. Like, it was like really that close. Like, it was so scary and massive. But I think the. That one's kind of more your classic grizzly story. I have one really quickly that's just like the intuition was so wild. So this was so 2015 was the year that the last time we had a grizzly casualty in Yellowstone happened. Happened near Lake Lodge. And I worked at Roosevelt Lodge, which was not too far from the lake. And there's this trail. I think I took notes. I think it's Storm Point. Yeah, Storm Point Trail. And my friend and I were going, and it's a windy day, kind of like gray and icky. And we were just kind of having like, oh, sorry. We're just kind of like having feedback. Okay. We were just having kind of like weird vibes, but we weren't really saying anything. And so we were just gonna do this like, quick little hike and we're really close to Lake Lodge. And again, this was like three weeks after the mauling. The guy Died. And all of a sudden we get to this one spot in the trail and it's so crazy. We looked at each other the exact same time time. And we went, we need to leave. And she's like, thank God, let's get out of here. And I was like, okay, yeah, let's go. Like. And we were both, like, kind of embarrassed. We're like, I feel like we're such babies. Like, why are. You know, like, this is so weird. Like, we got that at the same exact time. That's so strange. We go back into my car and then literally, like two minutes later, this massive grizzly exits the exact same trail we were just on. And a photo. Yeah, I do have a photo. It's kind of like shitty, but it's because the only time it's okay is

[Juliana Chauncey]

because you're in your car.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, it was from a point and shoot. Let me find it. And yeah, we were like, freaking out. We're like, oh, my God, we're so smart. We knew that was bad. Oh, my God. But yeah, and it's my friend Kayla and she was on my podcast and we talked about it and because we were both just like, that was wild. I can't believe. Believe we had that intuition, like that gut feeling of like, something's not right. And I mean, we. It. We don't know if it was the same bear. I think they actually killed her and her cubs. So it wasn't the same bear. But you ever have a moment very

[Juliana Chauncey]

close by, you ever have a moment after a moment of intuition like that where you like, check yourself and you're like, am I a witch? Did you wonder that?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah. We were both like, are we like, actually very powerful?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Is my letter from Hogwarts coming?

[Liz Crandall]

Okay, I'm almost there. Where is it? And then we both got grizzly tattoos.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I'm surprised you didn't put that in the trek propaganda. I thought you would put the grizzly glacier story.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh, here I was worried that by the time it came out, everyone had already heard it.

[Liz Crandall]

But yeah, it's a shitty picture because it was from a point and shoot in 2015, but, oh, wow, it was big. It was black.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Was it black?

[Liz Crandall]

No, it had a hump.

[Juliana Chauncey]

But in color.

[Liz Crandall]

Not.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Not like the.

[Liz Crandall]

I think it looks darker than it was.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Got it. Oh, my gosh. And that's right, coming out of the

[Liz Crandall]

tree trail, it was coming off the storm point trail.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That's a big boy.

[Liz Crandall]

It's a big boy. Big. Big enough, you know, I was like, nope. And it was like, I said in that same exact area.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's so cool.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It's like a full lane of the road there.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Not questioning the fur color to diminish the skin.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, no, no, you're good. Yeah, no, it's. It's just a shitty picture.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I just need to know if I need to be afraid of the black ones too.

[Liz Crandall]

I mean, you should have a healthy fear.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I'm afraid of all the brown colored ones. But black bears can be brown in color. They can be possibly vice versa.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, I mean, you should be a health.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Like I said, we're afraid.

[Liz Crandall]

Healthy fear of any predator. But there's ways to be safe. Have bear spray, keep your distance, go in numbers.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Well, we are actually at the end of your time here. A minute over. But we do have to end with this. The sponsor question, the peak performance question presented by topo athletic. Use code trek15topoathletic.com to get 15% off. Do you have a top performance enhancing or backpacking hack? We'll just call it like outdoor hack hack. Like long day out in the field. Is there something that you go to to keep you motivated, running strong, etc.

[Liz Crandall]

Like a food or drink? Sorry.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It could be anything. Could be a mantra. Could be a practice that you do. Tapping into your witch spidey senses to sense when bears are around.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, man. Like after. After a trip outside. Like, what's my routine? Is that kind of. Sorry.

[Zach Badger Davis]

We can take the question any direction that you want to go, I guess.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Guess like, like what. What are your. What's a hack that you do to make you perform at your peak?

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, okay, I see. I need electrolytes. I have these little. They're in my pack. I have these little, like electrolyte tablets that you eat. And they're just like pure salt. But I have like this pina colada flavored one. It's like crack. Like, it helps me so much. I actually have a sodium dish deficiency, so I have to. I have the opposite of a lot of people. I have to have a lot of salt and especially when I'm hiking. So I just, like, OD on electrolytes. We have some gifts for you in

[Juliana Chauncey]

the forms of cans and powders.

[Liz Crandall]

Oh, please, I would love it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Well, Liz, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. Where should people go to keep up with you, your podcast, etc.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah, so you can find my podcast anywhere. You get podcasts like Spotify or Apple podcasts. And it's rangers of the lost park. And you can find me on Instagram. Rangers of the Lost park, you can find me on Patreon and I'll have some more cool stuff for that in the near future, which will be fun. And I also have a YouTube channel that I'm going to try to put more on, but I'm a one woman show right now, so it's gonna be a little bit till I get there, but I will get there.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Well, Liz, thank you so much for joining us here on BACKPACKER Radio.

[Liz Crandall]

Thank you guys so much. This was so fun.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Hey, I need to be healthy every day to survive it and go through the next chemo round and the next chemo round. So it's important that work was part of that to keep my mind busy for 8, 9 hours and then I had to go back and face the reality. I had a goal and the goal is to survive.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue, continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place for healing.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Learn more and sign the [e-mail] to

[Zach Badger Davis]

the trek propaganda portion of today's show. This segues so well off of the bonus segment that we just ran. You'll have to tune in Thursday to get that, but I'm just gonna do one of these. I'm gonna do the news piece by Kelly this is Hikers discover human remains near Vermont Appalachian Trail hikers in Vermont's Green Mountain National Forest discovered what appeared to be human human foot bones inside a partially buried pair of hiking boots late last month, prompting an investigation near Mount Tabor. A follow up search on May 4th turned up additional remains, outdoor gear and personal items nearby, though authorities haven't said which whether the discovery was on or near the at. I don't know if that's been updated. Updated since.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, I want, I would like an update.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. But on the list of spooky things to discover while in the backcountry, finding a foot in a boot that feels like something straight out of a horror movie.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, I'm googling it because I want to see if there's anything else. Of course the first article is the Trek.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Nice. Hell yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Love that.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It's from basically 26th. What's happened since?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, I guess.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Okay.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Question of the day. This might not be relevant to anyone but me, although I think just the older we get, at least the older that I get and I know this is a stereotype of our parents age, just being able to remember names in general, it becomes my brain feels much more like Swiss cheese every Single day. But it's especially bad with celebrity names. Like, someone who's not a household name, whose name I've said out loud, like, three times in my life, and then I see their face and I recognize them. I can say the thing that they're in, but actually being able to pull out their name, it's getting harder every single year.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I've never been good at it. And, like, this part's hard because it's also. How do I describe them if I. If I don't know their name? Like trying to describe a vague face that I remember.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. Jabba is surprisingly good at the celebrity recall thing. My buddy Alex Wysocki, he's an encyclopedia for this.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Garrett's good at it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Not me, though. But is this. Is there a particular celebrity where, like, it doesn't matter how many times you've been like, oh, yeah, that's it. If I asked you, the next day, it's gone?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, I. I thought we were doing this as a triple crown, so I came prepped with three.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay.

[Juliana Chauncey]

The girl who looks like Zooey Deschanel but isn't Zendaya. No, no, this is a girl that looks like her. She's got the same bangs face. They look so similar. Google.

[Liz Crandall]

Google.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Zooey Deschanel look alike. See, this is. I can't remember her.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Chanel look alike. Celebrity. Katy perry. No, emily blunt. Isn't Emily Blunt. Jim from the office's wife.

[Juliana Chauncey]

She's. No, it's not her.

[Zach Badger Davis]

John Krasnowski. Is that right?

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's the guy. No, no, no, not that woman.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Am I even thinking of the right person? No. Here we are actively doing it. Oh, I got that part right. Emily Blunt is Jim's.

[Juliana Chauncey]

What does she look like? No, that's not her. Then I don't think.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, I don't think they were.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I thought Emily Blunt was the one in Devil Wears Prada.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I've never seen it. But she's in a quiet place, which I believe she also directed. Quiet place. Is. Is that the name of it?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Wait, are you saying she was Jim's wife in a quiet place or in the office?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Jim's wife in a quiet place.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I think she. Oh, I haven't seen a quiet. Please.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Did she just direct that? Or John Krasnowski did.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Wait, show me what she looks like. It could be her then.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Now I have to know who directed it. I mean, it's not going to help you, cuz she's blonde there. I don't think they look that much alike, so I don't think that's correct.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Who's that girl? No, no, it's not her either.

[Liz Crandall]

Okay.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I don't know. I don't even know who it is. There's a girl that looks like her. She's got similar hair and it's never Zoe. It's always this other woman and she's in some stuff that I don't remember. And I don't remember her when she's there either. So her. My second one.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Quick aside as I gather that you like horror movies.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Scary movies.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, I like things that have no conflict, have love and are happy.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay. I don't like scary movies typically. I thought A Quiet Place was. Was excellent. Really, it's really good.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I don't like scary movies typically, but I like ones that. I like ones that have a good plot like that, that are actually good in plot. I don't like jump scares. I think those are cheap tricks. And I don't like when they over rely on gore to make up for the fact that there's no substance in their plot.

[Zach Badger Davis]

A Quiet Place is literally like. Once the bad guys enter the equation, there's like no dialogue in the entire movie. It's like literally all. All plots, cinematography, just conceptually, just really unique and well done.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I thought, okay, great, I'm in. Maybe I'll watch it one day. My next one. And this is. I wrote these down how I remember them because again, I can't remember their names. So I'm sorry that I'm sending us in a goose chase each time. The hot guy, I think his name starts with a J, he's a brunette and he's in Recent things.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I don't even know what recent things is, but let's.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, no, it's not. That's not the name of a movie. That's just like he's in things that are recent. Yeah, that's some hot guy with.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That's the worst clue of all time. I wouldn't even notice.

[Liz Crandall]

Name?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Hot.

[Liz Crandall]

Hot. Hot.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Actor. Name? No.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Jim John Krasowski.

[Juliana Chauncey]

He's like a. He's got like a foreign name or something.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh, definitely not going to be able to help you out then. Jean Claude Van Damme. Ah, Jimmy Carr.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I found him. Jacob Elordi. Jacob Elordi. He's in Euphoria.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay. Jacob Elordi Elordi.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Every time. Every time. He sound like an ad or something. I've never seen Euphoria, but I'm like, oh, who's that? And Garrett's like, that's Jacob Elordi. And I'm like, oh. And he's like, you know who that is? And then I'm like, okay, guy. He's. There's just nothing really rememberable about his face.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Sure.

[Juliana Chauncey]

But it's not a bad one.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I think he's in, like, stuff lately. Apparently he's like a name that I should know. According, I guess he's been on snl.

[Zach Badger Davis]

He looks like a darker haired version of the guy in the Hunger Games.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh, like a. Okay. I could see like a piece of PETA.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, PETA.

[Liz Crandall]

Okay, great.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And then my last one is the guy with the weird face who asked people to stop telling him he has a weird face.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Adam Driver.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, this guy has like, he's got a very, like a rectangle kind of shaped head. And apparently people. No, he's young. People have been. He's in that movie with the horns. And people keep being like, you're so weird looking. And then he did an interview where he was like, that hurts my feelings. I get it. I'm not attractive. Like, can we please stop pointing it out?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Looking Head guy. Horns.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Like the animal horns?

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm getting weird results. I put in too many descriptors.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh, God, he's got like. The. Is his name. He's in. What's that movie? It's creepy. I didn't watch. There's like a mansiony looking house. People have like animal horns on their head. It's like an extravagant party kind of vibe, but also foggy and creepy with

[Zach Badger Davis]

Tom Cruise and, I don't know, Nicole Kidman.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I don't know. It was like a big thing for a minute, like the fleetingest of moments vibe.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Eyes Wide Shut. No, they're not horns in that movie.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It's like deer horns or something. I don't know. Okay, what else is he in? Oh, he was in. Oh, gosh, I just saw this. The Peaky Blinders. Not the show, but they just. They just did the movie. They just did a movie with the. The something man. The. What was the name of the title?

[Zach Badger Davis]

The Immortal Man.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yes, and he was the guy's son.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Tom Hardy.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, that was Finn Cole.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm going. I'm just going down the cast right now.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Pey Blinders, Immortal Man, Son.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Ah,

[Juliana Chauncey]

Barry Keogan. That guy.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay, I've never seen that guy's face in my life.

[Liz Crandall]

Sure you have.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You don't forget this face.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Barry.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Barry Keogan. You've never seen this man's face?

[Zach Badger Davis]

No. What else is he in?

[Juliana Chauncey]

The one with the animal horns and the Creepy set. Where's his IMDb

[Liz Crandall]

look at his face? You've never seen him?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I don't think so. What else has he been in?

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's what I'm looking.

[Liz Crandall]

Saltburn.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's the one. Saltburn 2023.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I haven't.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I think they had it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh, Duncan. I did see Dunkirk, but I don't remember his face.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I thought they wore animal horns in Saltburn. Did I miss see a trailer?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay, yeah. I mean, he's got some interesting features for sure.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, well, apparently people have been mean to him and he went and did a thing where he was like, can you stop? Oh, look here, he's got the animal horns on. Look, I wasn't wrong.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Okay, yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

See them?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, I believe you and see it.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You didn't. No, I thought he said, I didn't see it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Looks like something out of the Headless Horseman. What's that? Okay, the. I'm going to do mine.

[Liz Crandall]

Great.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I cheated because I had to look it up because otherwise we'd be doing this game, which apparently was, I guess, more helpful. Well, so I'll start with the one that I can never do. Like if you ask me to give me his name to give you his name tomorrow for like a million dollars, I won't be able to do it. And that is, for whatever reason, Jason Sudeikis. I always just call him Ted Lasso cuz oh, I look at his face and I just draw a lasso. That is Ted Lasso. And for whatever reason, there's nothing sudeus about him in my brain.

[Liz Crandall]

All lasso.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, I agree.

[Zach Badger Davis]

The other one, this one I am now good at at I could. It'll probably take me a few seconds to pull out, but for whatever reason, Bradley Cooper was the hardest name for me to remember for the longest time. Even though he's in everything, he's a really good actor. Like I. I like Bradley Cooper.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I'd argue that's an easy one.

[Zach Badger Davis]

There just something about him is not Bradley Cooper to me. Like I want him to be John. Like I want him to have a more basic name.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Sure.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And Bradley Cooper's a little too off the beaten path. And then the other one that I was struggling with immensely the other day is the. Not the lead character from Arrested Development, but the tall guy who's probably the funniest. He's got the deep voice. He does like truck commercials.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I don't think I've ever seen it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You've never seen Arrested Development?

[Juliana Chauncey]

I probably have. I just can't picture it. Will Arnett showing is he the one in bird box that holds the woman's eyes open and makes her look out the window?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I don't think so. Well are not bird box. No, bird box is the.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh, who's this guy then?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Will Arnett does comedies, I think.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's not him.

[Zach Badger Davis]

No, different. Very different.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh know. Show me his face again.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Let's go to the images page.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It's not the same person. It looked the same for a second. They are very different.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, but he also has a very popular podcast with. Oh God damn it.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Can you not remember his name?

[Zach Badger Davis]

No, it's the other guy from Arrested Development and Jack from Will and Grace. Jason Bateman. Smart list is the name of the podcast. Anyways, I'm sure it was painful for people to listen to. That's why we're here is to ruin your day audibly. I'll come back to the thing of the week after. Let's do the triple crown first. Sponsored by onyx. Use code TREK70 for 70% off. A premium plan at Onyx Backcountry. Onyx Backcountry is the shit. I I want you to participate. You're gonna have to speculate a little bit here to make this work but this is. This was inspired by a gift that we were given recently of this is the triple crown of the worst gifts to give young kids.

[Liz Crandall]

You better just all over a gift you got recently.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It was from another parent so I think they might have done it in jest. But yeah, our. I think it was one of the twins, Oliver I think came home with a whistle.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's bad.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It's so bad.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's really bad.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It's like we made the rule that you can only blow it outside and I went out to throw the ball for Sierra in the yard or the like the big field behind her house and I'm far away from the house and all I can hear is just the fucking whistle blaring off in the distance. And three year olds don't understand rules. Rules don't really apply. Like they get joy out of breaking rules. So they're blowing the whistle non stop. They the I think Jenna ended up throwing the one whistle away and then they had a meltdown so we got more whistles. So then both twins had whistles and then finally I broke down and I just threw him away. But yeah, a whistle is an excruciating present from the parents perspective. Do not ever give a young kid a whistle. It's a nightmare.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I maybe like I'm not gonna speculate as much as I thought, because one of mine was gonna be anything that makes noise.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I mean, kids love stuff that makes noise, so they're gonna gravitate toward that. But. But the amount of decibels that the toy can produce is definitely indicative of how painful that toy is going to be for the parent. Like there's to be a parent, you just have to be ready to be going through a torture chamber at most times, especially when they're young. Like, I've been listening to the Moana soundtrack non stop for four years now. Thankfully, it's a very good soundtrack. But any song on repetition that much is going to drive you crazy. That compared to a whistle is like music to my ears. A whistle for anything longer than a couple seconds is real. It's a pow tactic.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. Well, that. Yeah, that sounds like a situation I wouldn't want to be in.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It's not good.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Sorry.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It's not good.

[Juliana Chauncey]

My first one is going to be stickers.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Because stickers never go in a book or where you think that they should go. Stickers go on windows and on cabinet nets and on bedroom doors and lampshades.

[Liz Crandall]

They.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And they don't come off that easily and they're going to leave residue or take things with them and.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So if you hate your house stickers,

[Zach Badger Davis]

the good kid stickers are not that sticky for that exact reason. Because stickers don't. They're never. They never land where they're intended. Good. Jenna just took a photo of my back the other day and I didn't even know, but one of the kids had stuck like 14 stickers to my shirt. Like I would have gone around the rest of the day just having stickers on my shirt, not knowing it. But yeah, kids, when we go to the doctor's office, it's just a bowl of stickers. Like, kids always love stickers.

[Liz Crandall]

I love stickers.

[Juliana Chauncey]

But I get sticker fatigue.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Which is hard with like Nalgenes and things these days.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Sure. Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

My yeti cooler has not one sticker on it. Cuz I just can't commit.

[Zach Badger Davis]

The. The good kid stickers, like come in sheets and they're not that sticky. They're easy to pull off the thing because that way you don't have to like sit there and individually peel them off and give them to your kid. Like they can get to it. But yeah, they come off pretty easily. Like the stickers that you can buy in most places for adults, quote unquote. That is not a good gift for a kid because. Yeah, that'll get stuck to a window and then you've got a problem on your hand.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Right. And. Yeah. Okay, my next one is going to be. Trying to figure out how specific I should be. Okay. I'm going to say it and then I'm going to narrow it down to the story. Anything really sweet. Like an edible sweet thing. Yeah. Like candy or like a baked good, Like a brownie or like cake or anything that's gonna get them just, like, all jazzed up.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Or like anything that implies that they would have any level of, like, self preservation. For example, I got a gumball. Like, it was like a make. Make your own gum factory kit, whatever. And it just. It came with gum. You just put it into these little molds that like, shaped it. Like it just took a piece of gum and basically just cookie stamped a shape on it and it was like a playl kit. Now you have your gum. Right. Like, that's how cheap the entertainment was because you were young. I said, fuck this. I just ate all the gum. And so I remember sitting on the couch with what it was an entire box factory's worth of gum to produce with just in my mouth at the same time. And I couldn't chew. I couldn't close my mouth. It was just like gooing out because it was just like saliva that I couldn't swallow. I. I could have choked.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. That sounds like a lock draw.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I should have. I should have choked. Who left me unattended with it?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. It's. In hindsight, I had to pull it

[Juliana Chauncey]

out with my hand and then, like, because I was a person who swallowed my gum.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So I was trying to swallow it

[Liz Crandall]

all and I couldn't get it down,

[Juliana Chauncey]

so I had to pull it out and break it into bits so I could swallow it bit by bit.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. The content around kids choking on stuff is plentiful. Once you get into that algorithm, you learn about all the things that are choking. Hands. I actually don't remember if gum is one of them, but I don't think most people are giving their kids gum.

[Liz Crandall]

No.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Exactly. What a terrible gift.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And if you're consuming gum in that quantity. Yeah, that seems like a bad idea.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And it also overlaps into. I don't think you're gonna have this one, but if you are, we can just like, cut it. But I think gum overlaps into the slime category where, like, that's gonna go in the carpet. It's not coming out.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. No, no, no. The whole thing about being a parent, especially to young kids, is recognizing problems before they become problems. Prevention is the name of the game.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I got slime once and then I got it taken away so fast and the carpet had a stain.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, no, our carpet looks like hell. We don't to the point it's disgusting and we have no thoughts of replacing it. Just cuz it's going to get worse.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, we.

[Zach Badger Davis]

We can't get nice stuff at our house cuz everything gets ruined.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Very.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. Okay. Slimy stuff. Gum for sure. My next one is kind of in the same vein as a carpet rune. But really any marker that doesn't wash out of everything very easily. You can keep kids contained to a certain space and give them paper to go draw and stuff. And then like as soon as you go off to go to the bathroom or just do anything where you're not on top of them. I've caught my kids like with markers drawing on the walls. They literally will draw on the carpet and they know that it's wrong. Talking about the twins. Leo's a good boy, but they just love to. They're little cavemen. They want to leave their mark on things. They're doing hieroglyphics everywhere they can on the house. And most of the time like kids markers are made because they know that kids are cavemen. They wash out pretty easily. But occasionally you get some of the cheap stuff and you have to scrub and it just leaves a residue. So yeah, markers that aren't extremely water soluble. Soluble suck as a parent.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah.

[Liz Crandall]

Okay.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, that's an easy one. Your turn again.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Last one for me. I do have one honorable mention.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I do too.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Really? Any toy that has more than like eight parts, if it requires a lot of pieces for the toy to operate, it's going to get lost. It's going to get lost really quickly. It doesn't matter how organized you are. Maybe I'm just speaking to, to people who have young boys because I imagine girls aren't quite as bad. But things get thrown, things get temper tantrumed. They move from the upstairs to the basement and back from the basement to the upstairs. Like you just never know where anything is. And then once you've got 80% of a toy, you might as well have 0% of the toy.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Like they.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It becomes a meltdown because it's not able to function properly. And then you get 15 of those toys where they have a bunch of pieces. Before you know it, your house is just like a peace farm. You have all these individual plastic pieces that don't make sense and just compile on top of Each other. You're living in a dumpster of chaos and. Yeah, I'm describing my house to you.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Sounds personal.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. No, nothing brings me more satisfaction than just throwing all these things into a bag and taking it to goodwill. Because the clutter in my house does not jive with my. Through hiker sensibilities of trying to keep things simple and light.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I wish I knew where all of my stuffed animals and things that I had love for went, because I think my parents were of the same mindset where they just threw it out, like, we gotta get rid of this shit.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm glad that goodwill exists, because I would.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I would still have it today.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

All eight of my stuffed animal dogs that were not real.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I understand the struggle. It's. And it's only a small fraction. When you first have kids, you want to spoil them and give them all the stuff, and then all of a sudden, like, you've got friends and family that are giving them gifts, and, like, we've just stopped giving our kids gifts all together. We'll get them, like, a nice thing. Like, we got them a trampoline for the twins birthday. Do stuff like that occasionally. But, like, in terms of getting the small stuff that you get at a grocery store, at a toy store on Amazon, like, we've just stopped it all together. But. But friends and family haven't gotten the memo, and we still just collect plastic shit.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah.

[Liz Crandall]

Okay.

[Juliana Chauncey]

My last one is small animals, like. Like a fish that goes in a bowl and not like a regulated tank, like a bowl where you have to actually change the bowl water daily. That fish is dying. Hermit crabs, I've suffered through those. They don't die. Snail snails. I loved snails growing up because I was allergic to things with fur. And so in school we had a snail, like, farm, whatever. And then you got to take home a snail at the end of the teaching lesson thing. Well, I was a teacher's pet, and so I got to take home two snails because they were extras. So then I had my two snails, and then I was playing with them in the porch, and I lost a snail. And then my teacher gave me a snail to replace the snail I lost. Then I had two snails again. And then I think at the very end, there was, like, some unclaimed snails. So maybe she gave me one more. And then I had three snails. Snails. Then I found the fourth snail, AKA the first second snail, under the plastic, like, Fisher Price desk. And then I had four snails. Then the snails had babies, and there were hundreds of these baby snails all in this tank, the clearest shells, like, it was like, see through. It was so cool. And I think around then is when my dad snapped, because I came home one day and my snail tank was not there, and he was outside washing it out with a hook. And I asked him where my snails went, and he just said, away.

[Zach Badger Davis]

At least with snails, you can just put them outside. And I assume.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I don't know what he did with them. Yeah, I don't know where he put them.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It's not like. I don't know. It's not like a dog or something like that where, like, if you just leave it outside, you're basically killing it or something bad is going to happen to it. With this snail, I feel like it's like, all right, this is where I live now.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, but he's also, like. He's also, like, an avid vegetable gardener. Is he about to release hundreds of snails in his own yard? Absolutely not.

[Liz Crandall]

Right?

[Juliana Chauncey]

Because they eat leaves and shit. So now you think, where did he put the snails? This is unresolved. He's gonna listen to this. I've never. He's never given me the real answer on where the snails went. Yeah, but you don't want to do that, because then your kid's gonna be 34, sitting on a freaking podcast talking about these snails that she's never gotten over because she's never had closure.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Just don't get them a small pet.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Speaking of good books. Good books, good gifts for kids.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Books.

[Liz Crandall]

Books.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Books is the best.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And especially when on the front. Like, when you open the front cover, and that's where you write your card, so it's like, leo, happy birthday. Love, sad, you know, Then you immortalize it, and then. Yeah, it's always in the book when they open it. And it's cute. You put a little date on there.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm always happy. And now when I give kid gifts to friends or whatever, it's always a book. Because all three of her boys love books. Books don't get old. It's not like an odd distraction. Some of the books are a little gimmicky. Like, when this stuff, like, pops up, if you've got young boys, they're gonna rip that shit right out, and then that becomes a problem. So the more simple. Let the content of the book speak for itself. When there's, like, buttons that you push where it makes noise, like, that's gonna break, and then that's gonna become a problem. Just pick good books. But to your point about gardens, I learned recently through one of Leo's books that apparently ladybug bugs are like, amazing for gardens.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, they are.

[Zach Badger Davis]

They eat all the aphids.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. And you want to. You there's certain plants that you can get that attract ladybugs.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. And I guess, like, farms in California were introducing them by like the tens of thousands to help, like, save their crops as opposed to using pesticides.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's cool.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Kids books are the.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. You learn things.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's good.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Sweet. My one honorable mention is just like cheap toys from Amazon that are made in China because when you open them and they first work, they're really cool. But because they're cheap, they're not made well and they break instantly. And then going the fall off from going to a toy that they really like to it not functioning is that gap is greater than the joy that they get from not ever having it to receiving it. So you've created more net disappointment than anything else. So. Yeah, just. I understand it's tempting to get cheap gifts again, just go for the book, please. For the love of God. Books are the best.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And these cheap toys suck. There's also one toy in particular. God, what is the name of it? It's just like a sharp dragon. I think it's a 3D printed toy.

[Juliana Chauncey]

A sharp dragon.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yes. So, yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

What is he?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I don't know. But somehow we've gotten three of those. So I imagine that they're pretty common. I think they come from 3D printers. I'm not entirely sure.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Sure.

[Zach Badger Davis]

But that is a fucking terrible toy because all toys just get left out on the ground.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Say if you step on that, you're dying.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I've stepped on it multiple times. Jenna's actually like, cut her skin open. These things are like. Yeah. It's like putting a grenade on the ground or bear trap or something.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I hate that.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. Do not get here on Amazon specifically. Large 3D printed dragon.

[Liz Crandall]

Yes.

[Zach Badger Davis]

This is a 30 inch.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That don't get any size 30 inch large dragon.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. These 3D printed dragons are the fucking bane of every parent's existence. Do not get that.

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's funny.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Cool. I do have a thing of the week.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Okay.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I think I've been alluding to this for a few episodes now. This is. Rachel wrote it in his parenting thing of the week. I'm gonna call it stupid thing of the week.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Okay.

[Zach Badger Davis]

But there was some thing where Leo was talking to us at night and he was just like doing a fib about something normal for a kid of his age to do. But I was trying to Impress upon him that lying is not good. And I did so with the old tale, the Boy who Cried Wolf. And as I'm telling the story, I realized that I don't really remember this story. So, as is often the case here in this podcast, like, I have the Oval overall concepts down, but, like, some of the details I'll miss. So I'm telling him, how about you remember the plot?

[Liz Crandall]

It's all in the name.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Well, so I know I have the concept of the boy lying about a wolf.

[Juliana Chauncey]

He keeps saying, the wolf comes to get the sheep and goes down to town, and the town people come to help, but there's no wolf. And then finally, the wolf comes and he goes down and tell the town people, and then they don't come because they don't believe him. And then the wolf gets all the sheep.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yes. So vaguely. I have a key ingredient that I missed in the story was the sheep.

[Liz Crandall]

What?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I had remembered it that he was on the outskirts of town and wolf was coming to get him. He cried wolf, the townspeople came and rescued him. Did it again.

[Liz Crandall]

Why would he keep going back to

[Juliana Chauncey]

the edge of town?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Well, it's an old fable. People come out. The third time he goes out, he encounters a wolf. He yells townspeople to come save him. They don't come, and the wolf eats them. And just like the look of terror in his eyes. So I think conceptually, I drove home the importance of not lying because people will stop believing you. I think my version of it was a little too lie.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You're gonna get eaten by a wolf at night.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So did he pass up?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I. We had already gone over that. Lying was bad before then. I was just using that story to illustrate the point.

[Liz Crandall]

Right.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Really drive it on.

[Zach Badger Davis]

But then he actually corrected me because apparently that's something that he had been taught in school. He's like, dad, I thought there were sheep in that story. And Jenna's like, yeah, there are sheep in that story. I'm like, all right, I'm going to bed.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, that's so funny.

[Zach Badger Davis]

But he was a little terrified. But he's. He's old enough and smart enough to know how I messed the story up. So, yeah, that was my. We'll call it parenting thing of the week. Definitely.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Stupid thing sitting there, being like, oh, fuck. And then the wolf ate him. The end.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Like, I looked at Jenna before I delivered the end, and I'm like, I don't think this is going to go well. I knew what I was going to say. It was atrocious. But that's the best version of it that I could remember. Was the wolf eating the boy?

[Juliana Chauncey]

That's so funny.

[Zach Badger Davis]

So yeah. Don't lie, kids. The wolf will get you. Mailbag. Nope, I lied. I have a sun hoodie. This is technically the second sun hoodie that I've reviewed. I'll have another one in next week's episode with Jabba. This is the Paca. Jeez, what's the name of it?

[Juliana Chauncey]

It looks like soft.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It is very soft. That is the best feature of this. Hold on. The sole hoodie by Paca mine weighs at 9.6 ounces. This is the large. All of the sun hoodies I'm testing are larges. Price point's 99. This is in the middle of the three. I'm kind of foreshadowing next week's episode. But this one is cheaper than the North Face that I've already reviewed. As Chance mentioned, you can feel it. It's very soft. And this is after a wash and me wearing it a few times and it's. I want to say it's like 17%. What is this specific wool? I don't want to get this wrong because this is like a. It's a very high end. It's not just regular merino. Oh, gosh.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Where is it? Alpaca by the name Paca.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It is alpaca, but. But royal alpaca. Apparently it's like a specific royal alpaca

[Juliana Chauncey]

of the royal lineage, I guess.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Apparently that's like a really high quality alpaca wool. So to give it the proper wool testing, I wore it on a run. And then the next day we went on that hike with over at Galbraith and then. Was that all I did before I washed it? I had back to back sweating events in it and it didn't stink. I've since washed it because I think I left it in a pile and was starting to get nasty for that reason. But it passes the wool test. Even though it's only a small percentage of alpaca, it's only 14%, which for like a alpaca blend is on the low side. From my research, I think because it is such a high quality alpaca, it doesn't need as much wool to be get like the benefits of being anti odor and all that good stuff. The Tencel is a really good fabric for heat, for a natural fabric and it's really soft. That being said, for hot weather hiking, which is again the context for which I'm testing these in. And I think what's important To a three season backpacker. This one's just too hot. Hot for me. Like, it doesn't.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, it.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It wicks the moisture well, but it holds on to it. So when you get sweaty, it just holds on to that moisture, which is like cooling compared to cotton, but compared to, like, a thinner polyester fabric where it actually, like, removes it and it will evaporate faster. It just. It just sits too hot for me.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It feels like a very nice sit on the couch and watch a movie fabric.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. I mean, for like a cooler, like, early fall or even, like, for today's weather, I think this would be a really good piece. Yeah, this definitely has a place. I think overall, this is a nice piece. Again, just for the context of, like, hot pct. CTT style through hiking, this would be too hot for me. But overall, nice piece. I just personally would not opt into this one, but I was impressed. Impressed with the quality of this. I'd heard a lot about it and lived up Chon's boobs. What? I forgot what I gave.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I did, too.

[Zach Badger Davis]

The. Oh, the REI piece. I think I don't want to say what I gave because that's the next episode I'm gonna. This one I like better than the REI. I think it's probably warmer than the REI one.

[Liz Crandall]

Even

[Zach Badger Davis]

5.3 chance boobs.

[Juliana Chauncey]

All right, this is fun.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I haven't retroactively graded the North Face one. These are all subject to change because I'm still testing.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Did we not grade the North Face one, I thought?

[Zach Badger Davis]

No, because it was the first one that I did. I didn't have, like, enough context to, like, give it a comparative situation. I'm gonna go with 7.1 chance boobs. So that one's in the lead right now.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Boobs.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm going to go. When I get to, like, my top five, I'm going to start to cycle through those top five over and over again so I can get a better idea of durability. And, like, this is limited with me just using it in small amounts. I have 14 or 18 of these to test, so that's the reason for that. But, yeah, that's where we are.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You can give us the chance boob, but you can take it away.

[Zach Badger Davis]

It's true. Okay, no bag.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Episode number 143 made a contractor. I think I was watching porn in my work truck, but I still love you guys. Oh. Oh, hold on. I didn't read that with the right cadence. Episode 143 made a contractor think I was watching porn in my work truck. But I still love you guys. That sounds more better.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That makes sense.

[Liz Crandall]

Hi Zach.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Parentheses Zach with a K. Question mark. I'm not going to bother to look it up. Which is correct because this gives me an excuse to tell you I have a friend Zach with an H, who says Zach's with an H are superior to Zach's with a K, and I'd like to hear your input and shots.

[Zach Badger Davis]

As a Zach with an H, I

[Juliana Chauncey]

would agree with that friend Garrett's very particular about the two Rs, two Ts, and like really does not like a one Ted Garrett.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Sure. I. I'm sure people that up all the time too.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, it's fun.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And tr. I don't know if that meant he wanted my opinion too. I agree the H is less. It's just less like McKay's kind of case dated just looks a little more mean. I discovered BPR as one of the ultimate results of YouTube suggesting Liz Kidder's 2025 PCT hike videos. Love her. You should have her back on again. Which I followed fervently all summer. I'd never realized backpacking had come far technology wise and was something one could do without suffering immensely under a £50 plus pound pack. At 53, that's like 40% of my body weight as a West coast native. I hope to take my first backpacking trip this summer and hopefully try out the Timberline Trail.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Nice.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It's like two hours from me and PCT in 2027.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Hell yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Naturally, after listening to her episode, I started at episode one and have been religiously knocking out two to three episodes a day, Monday through Friday at work. Oh my God. I am an underground utility locator. One of those people who is summoned when someone calls 811 and draws the rainbow hieroglyphs on the ground so contractors know where the utilities are and don't dig into gas mains or take out the Internet SL power. I People that listen to this are really cool.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I didn't even know 811 is a thing.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I didn't even know.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Wait, what do you call 811 for?

[Juliana Chauncey]

I don't know. I didn't want to say it because I didn't want to sound like I don't know things.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh yeah, I'm an idiot.

[Juliana Chauncey]

What does it mean?

[Zach Badger Davis]

In The United States, 811 is the national call before you dig. Phone number Anyone planning on on an excavation project, whether it's a large construction job or a simple backyard project like planting trees or installing a mailbox mailbox must call 811 or visit 811 before you dig website. The more you know that.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Have you ever called anyone before digging?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, totally. All the time.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, I every time I think I learned that before moving into my new house.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, I thought I'm not doing too much digging, in fairness.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, I guess so. But okay.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I mean I definitely no never mind anyway.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And drive around from work site to work site spraying paint on the ground. Podcasts are nice when you don't want to end up sick of your own music whenever a trip comes around. I have no plans to skip ahead and see if you end up reading this on air. So it'll be like three months at the earliest before I get to hear this. By which time my uneducated ADHD ass will probably have forgotten I sent this, which will be absolutely hilarious. I am now on episode 143 and while I have enjoyed every episode, I don't think I've laughed harder than I did during this one. Especially during the Shaming TR segment. I didn't remember we had that.

[Liz Crandall]

Sorry tr.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I love you. You are my spirit animal and I admire that you put yourself out there and do hilarious despite your insecurities. Also, give me all the money in your wallet.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm kicking myself for not having the I iPad plugged in right now.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I'm loving it. Now on to the title story. I got to a job site in the middle of the Orgasms with Olive Garden segment. Wish I could remember that. Unplugged my phone, did my thing, came back to the truck. As Apple CarPlay As Zach knows and hates, likes to autoplay the second you plug your phone in. While annoying, this normally isn't an issue because I work alone. Except this time.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Oh, I think it's the audio clip we have of you.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Oh, the pasta? No, cuz that was when I was eating pasta that I had at Garrett's house. Yeah, wasn't in Olive Garden.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I don't remember.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Anyway, Apple. Except this time I was bringing a contractor over to look at some utility maps on my work laptop. I plugged my phone in. Chance moaned, it is that Chance moaned. I yelled, it's not porn, it's a hiking podcast and she just really likes pasta. Thankfully the blue collar world is full of dirt bags and he just asked me if work had really been that stressful and ran off, probably to tell his buddies the locator was flicking the bean in the work truck. But it's fine. I'll only be back here at least once a month. For the next until I quit to hike the PCT. Bonus non hiking poop story811 usually has a two business day response time but sometimes shit happens after hours like drunk people crashing into power poles and sewer lines back in backing up. That requires an emergency locate so every couple of months I go on call and get summoned to say to set emergencies should they arise. Pros it's double time and usually just like one to three hours of paid driving with maybe 20 minutes of actual work. Cons Drunk people like to hit polls at 2am so you're often woken up out of a dead sleep and you can't drink or go too far from home for the week for obvious reasons. One time I got called out to the middle of a middle of the night pole emergency on Hood river on the Oregon side of the Columbia Bay east of Cascade Locks. It's about a two hour drive, mostly down a dark rural highway so I got a 711 coffee on the way. All was well until I got to the emergency and got out of the truck. I could feel gravity ignited by the 20 ounce concoction of a 711 latte. I chugged on the way take immediate effect on my guts. Mercifully, I did not have to mark anything and was back in the truck within five minutes, cheeks clenched. However, it was still 2am and I was still on the side of a country road road surrounded by flashy light trucks miles from any known bathroom. I took off looking for any turnout that wasn't just someone's driveway. Maybe 10 minutes later, which is approximately 69420 years and I'm going to my pants time, I found a little road with a dozen mailboxes at the front. Perfect. I pulled into the conveniently placed parking spot in front of the mailboxes, shut my lights off, took my high vis vest off and shoveled into the woods as fast as one can with straight legs and an ass clenched tight enough to turn coal into diamonds. I made it maybe 10ft into the woods before yanking my pants down and unleashing a torrent of liquid. The kind of that if taken on a toilet would just sound like you were peeing instantly. Felt better though, so that's nice. I wish that was the end of it. Frowny face in my hurry to not in my truck, I didn't grab any of the emergency napkins. Anyone who has ever worked a job where the main bathroom is a Porta Potty knows is superior to the 0.5 ply those things are stocked with. I switched on my phone's flashlight and turned around looking for a leaf or something so I didn't have to choose between pulling up my pants over an unwiped ass or hobbling back to the truck with my pants around my knees. I turned around only to see a trail camera. It had seen everything. Horrified, I stumbled back to my truck, hoping with every fiber of my being that the mailboxes, trees and night had been enough to obscure the logo on my truck. I was too anxious to pull over and wipe my ass, so I just drove home, ran the world's smallest load of laundry and took a shower. Spent the next week waiting for the Come to the office that you haven't been to since your first day when you picked up your truck at the end of the day phone call. It never came. But there is a chance someone out there has a video of me pissing chunky chocolate milk out of my ps One time Zach asked if something on TV I think one of the Love Is Blind spin offs was dubbed. And now I have to ask Zach, are you a secret weeb? If yes, what is your favorite animal? I don't know. What's a Weeb?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I don't know.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Love you guys. Chance, I'm sorry if this email spawns the resurgence of those sound bites. Not really. They're hilarious. From Cassie. Thank you Cassie. That was incredible.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Weeb is Internet slang for a non Japanese person who has an obsessive interest in Japanese culture, especially anime, manga and video games. That's not me. I don't even know the reference there, but holy shit, that is in the triple crown of listener emails. The story's amazing and it's incredibly written. Cassie, you're my hero.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. That was wonderful. I'm sorry for making your co workers think you were listening to porn. I do just really like pasta.

[Zach Badger Davis]

That is just such a well written shit story.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. Which makes me think now that we'll have more free time in our hands, we should revisit that pooping in the woods because that one dust.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, that would be the lead story for sure.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Thank you Cassie. You're awesome. Five star review. Also, you guys can reach us podcastrek Co if you want to send us a note or go to backpackerradio.com to the submit a Mail feature. Okay, this one is from Home Skillet 503 stick to hike hiking. I am writing to thank you for the hiking content, but ask that you try to keep your very wrong thoughts on medicine, health, nutrition to yourselves. At the very least you could provide a mainstream health provider on Provide fact slash evidence based advice. Some of the very wrong advice on vitamin supplements could be actually harmful. For example, in town, electrolytes is wasteful at best and renal toxic at worst. I've learned so much from you all about hikes and gear. I just wish the cringe of discussing matters that you are not qualified to discuss would at least tone down. That is from home skill at 503. Thank you so much for the review. You guys can have your review. I should probably address that first.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah, you can say anything you want about us as long as it has five stars.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. I have to imagine this is in reference to element.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Well, yeah. For example, daily electrolytes is wasteful at best and renal toxic at worst.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Liz Crandall]

Is it wasteful?

[Zach Badger Davis]

Wasteful how the. Yeah, if you have enough electrolytes in your system and you're consuming an electrolyte supplement, it's. You're not actually like you're just peeing it out.

[Juliana Chauncey]

What if that is your electrolyte supplement?

[Zach Badger Davis]

If you're not. If you are deficient in electrolytes, then you are supplementing it. Then again, I'm not a doctor. Let me preface this. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nutrition expert. I don't have any specialty in any of this stuff. So anything that I say, I guess

[Juliana Chauncey]

I'm doing exactly what they're mad about.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Just flush it down the toilet. But.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Okay, but how come you can have caffeine every day and soda and that's fine, but like if you have an electrolyte and you're not supposed to like you're going to have a renal collapse.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Again, I'm not a doctor, so I'm not going to directly comment on this, but to my understanding, I'm assuming the reference to daily in town is from us promoting the sparkling can, which has 500 milligrams of sodium, which is the amount of sodium in like a tortilla or a large pickle. So like I guess it is possible if somebody has kidney disease and they consume sodium at that level, it could possibly create issues. I'm not a doctor, but the same is true for a whole host of foods. Like a half a gram of sodium. Sodium is in so many things that we eat. To say that like an element can is the thing that pushes you over the edge. I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I just think we've given worse medical advice for sure. So that's just a weird one to pick.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. I mean, I will say if you are Eating a high sodium diet and you're not exercising, you probably don't need any electrolyte supplement, period. We try to promote this as a backpacking supplement and a hang up oversupplement.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I stand by that. Yeah, that helps me immensely.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'll just speak for myself personally. Don't put anything in your body without talking to a doctor, which I am not. But it makes me feel way better. I sweat a lot. I go to the gym a lot. I'm in the sauna a lot. I sweat a lot when I exercise. I've had hyponatremia and I can say with great confidence that I feel better when I'm consuming this stuff. In that context, again, if you have issues with sodium, definitely talk to your doctor. This may be not the right thing for you. They're not a sponsor of today's episode. But just personally speaking, I have had hyponatremia from a salt imbalance of not having enough salt and element has been a benefit to my life and I'm sure there's lots of people where it could have an opposite effect. Speak to your doctor. We're not doctors.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

At least I learned today that electrolytes are controversial. I didn't know that.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So, yeah, thanks. Yeah, yeah. And if you have feedback again, as long as it has five stars, we'll read it. We're not. We're not hiding. No hiding. Hiding it or scared of it? I don't know.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm a little scared of it. We're not bearing any five star reviews here.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No five stars though, because you know, it's a give and take. If you're gonna give us shit, we have to take five stars for sure.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And if you screenshot your review, email us podcastrek C Radio. We'll send you a backpacker radio sticker. That goes for you too, homeschooled. Thank you for listening. Thank you to today's title sponsor. That is Topo Athletic. Oh, what's the code? Trek15 topo at checkout topoathletic.com Their footwear is the best. I wear it exclusively while backpacking nowadays. The pursuit twos have treated me very well. I recently retired my red pair and the uppers are still in great condition. Doing it mostly because my knees are bad and I want the cushiest midsole possible. The longer you wear them, any midsole is going to get condensed. And that's where I am. I'm on a new pair. I'm excited about it. It's like after getting a car wash or something like that. Like you feel like a new person or a haircut. It's like a new pair of trail runners. Like. Yeah, I'm gonna take on the day.

[Liz Crandall]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

I have the personality where unless my trail runners are like visibly not usable, I feel like I can't replace them yet. If I had, they're not dead yet, you know, so I, I wore mine when we went to do gala breath together the other day and they were still great and they still worked and they're not broken, so I'm not fixing them. And that's how I end up hiking with blowouts for like 900 miles on other trails. But the mindset, I think is a fair one. I think there's everything thing. There's something that everyone refuses to replace unless they absolutely have to. For me, it's shoes.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah.

[Juliana Chauncey]

So this is a good shoe for me to have with that personality.

[Zach Badger Davis]

For sure. If I had better knees, I would do the exact same thing.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah.

[Zach Badger Davis]

But yeah, topos are the best. I've heard a lot of good things about the mountain racers. I might have to give those a shot. Next. But again, use our code when I say Trek 15. Topo, you did for 15 off. Off your order. Also use code TREK70 when you get a premium plan with Onyx backcountry. Onyx back country is great.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Yeah. It's user friendly, which is all a girl can ask for.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. Thank you to our Bob People's award winners on Patreon. That is Alex and Misty with navigators crafting. Alex kindle, Andrew Austin McDaniel, Bill Jensen and Brad Blair from 13 Adventures. Brad Brent Mullins aka Cruzy, Brian Allsop, Carl Lobster Hood. Christopher Marshburn. Clint Sitler, coach from Marion Outdoors. Eric Casper. Friendly Ghost, Eric Hoffman. Ethan Harwell. Done. Jillian Daniels, Greg Knight. Greg Martin Griffin. Hey, would you bring me a beer? Haley Buckingham Palace. Jackson Storm Trooper Jared not from Subway. Jason Kaiser. Jason the Snail Snailer. Luke Nchez, Maddie in Arizona, Patrick C. And C. Randy Sutherland, Rebecca Brave Heart World Juror, sawyer products. The St. Louis shaman, Timothy Han and Tracy Trigger. Thanks to our guy Paulie at old man Murph's Coffee roasters. Go to ommcr.com get yourself some delicious beans.

[Juliana Chauncey]

And he's doing some some little tour. Not a little tour that's demeaning a local little in terms of from place to place.

[Liz Crandall]

Right.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Like a geographically small area tour. I would looked because I wanted to see if we could go. But he wasn't coming to Denver. But he's doing a tour I'm trying to. So if you're in the. If you're in the area, you should go look it up. We're finding the info on it now.

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm trying to find.

[Juliana Chauncey]

It was on his Instagram.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah, I'm trying to find his Instagram right now. That's it.

[Juliana Chauncey]

No, he tends to change the handle, which is confusing.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Yeah. You guys know how to search? Look up Polly. Boy shall cross on Instagram.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Find him.

[Zach Badger Davis]

And if you're in the Northwoods, go check them out. Paul is an exceptionally talented boy and

[Juliana Chauncey]

there's many places you can do that for sure.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You can follow us on social backpacker radio and Instagram and TikTok and Threads, facebook.com backpacker radio. You can follow Chaunce.

[Juliana Chauncey]

You can find me on Instagram at Juliana. Underscore Chauncey on YouTube at Juliana Chauncey. And you can get my book Hiking from Home. Along Distance Hiking Guide for Family and friends on Amazon.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Appalachian Trials and Pacific Crest Trials are my books. Johnson. I will be grateful for a review on Amazon. Subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow us on YouTube.

[Liz Crandall]

Hi, everybody.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Internet.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Sup, tube. That is it for today's show. Thank you so much for listening and happy hiking.

[Juliana Chauncey]

Bye.

[Zach Badger Davis]

You're not the boss of me, all right? Well, technically, Charlie, I am the boss of you because I own half your shares. You sold me half your shares at

[Liz Crandall]

the bar for goods and services.

[Zach Badger Davis]

Wait. Wait a second. You've definitely given me half your shares, too. Dude, maybe I gave you guys a couple shares. My back was against the wall. I needed a little breathing room. Bro, you gave me a shitload of shares one time for half. Half a sandwich. What are you guys doing? Is this a hose job where you're hosing me down? Dude, you hose yourself down. You hose yourself up. What do you want me to do? I don't care. Yeah, get a job. Oh, get a job. Yeah, just get a job. Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land where jobs grow on jobies. Now we're wasting time.

[Juliana Chauncey]

We can just get out of here.

[Liz Crandall]

You want me going to walk?

[Zach Badger Davis]

I'm walk. Just walk. I can't stand you guys. Choose. But every time I do, I find I lose.

[Liz Crandall]

I guess I'm a loser stomping ground.

[Zach Badger Davis]

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