Armchair Anonymous: Beach Stories

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Randall Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Today is beach. And that is what Ken is a specialist in.

I didn't see it.

You don't remember that part? No, I don't. And they're chanting, beat each other off. Did you dream this? No, no.

Oh, looks like this beach was a little too much beach for you, Ken. If I wasn't severely injured, I would beat you off right now, Ken. I'll beach off with you any day, Ken.

Hold my ice cream, Ken.

All right, Ken, you're on.

Let's beach off.

Anyone who wants to beach him off has to beach me off first.

I will beach both of you off at the same time.

But you don't even know how to beach yourself off. How are you going to beach both of us off? That doesn't make sense. Ken? Why are you getting on my phone?

I'm going to beach both of us off. Nobody's going to beach anyone off.

Oh, that's so funny. You were so right. You didn't remember that? At all. I've only seen the movie once.

Hard times, come and go.

Callahan. Oh, Callahan Breakpads. Callahan Callie. Remember Callahan Breakpads from Tommy Boy? Oh, no.

His dada?

His daddy.

You know what, I can hear you.

Oh, wonderful. Where are you? I'm getting glimpses out the window. I think I see pine trees, do I? What am I seeing out the window?

Good guess, any thoughts?

Pacific Northwest. No, I think you're in... Colorado. South.

Dax has got it. Pacific Northwest. I'm located in an area near Vancouver, B.C., Canada. It's actually an island called Bowen Island.

And are you Canadian?

I'm Canadian, yep.

Wonderful. And Callahan's a great name. Is that a code name, or that's your real name?

That's my real name. I wish I could take credit for it, but I didn't have any say in the matter back in the day. The story of the name is my parents saw an ad for a boxer named Kid Callahan selling a Sealy Posturepedic Mattress.

That's where it came from.

Oh, wow. Okay, you have a beach story.

This story takes place in Europe, specifically in Croatia back in 2016.

And you bought it off of a Croatian person?

We were based out of Berlin originally, so we bought it in Germany and that was where the trip was starting. We had some family there that were sort of supporting us getting ready to do this trip. And so, yeah, we bought it in Berlin for, I don't know, a thousand euros or something.

Okay.

We'd been going for a couple of weeks. We had a good little routine down. You know, we'd get to a campground, set up, make dinner, generally, just have a really good time. At this point, we'd been entirely inland, so Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest. And then the plan was to cut to the coast, so basically through Croatia, and get to this little island called Kirk.

No.

Camping. here is a gravel piece of area with maybe a picnic table and a fire pit. And a lot of the campgrounds there are, like, mini resorts. Restaurants, bars.

Oh, I want to go there. I love camping now.

Hey, if you're going to camp, that's a good way to do it. So, yeah, we found this wonderful little place and, you know, it was in this little town. It was just a couple minutes from the beach. So we set up, buy, crack, some wine, start making dinner. Lauren goes to the grocery store to grab some more wine and have a pretty standard night.

Oh, that sounds lovely.

Beautiful night. Fantastic night. And we're getting close to the bar and the music's on and Lauren sort of says, I love this song. I can't really think of who it is. And maybe this doesn't have context in the story, but I think it does.

Interesting.

And she goes back, it is definitely not Eagles of Death Metal. I've never heard of them in my life. And I had that sort of feeling, good confidence. You're like, nope, you're wrong. I know exactly what's going on.

Okay, sure. Okay.

So I wasn't quite 100% sure.

Nailing it. You weren't on point.

We get to the boardwalk, get down to the beach. It's a few steps down and it's this nice pebbly beach, not sort of a sandy one, but it's beautiful. We sit and we watch the sunset. It's not that busy. The sun's down.

Like the Europeans.

Very European. And my memory serves that there wasn't an emphatic yes, but there wasn't a no.

Oh, boy. Okay. Now here's the gift of drinking. When you've got a few glasses of wine in you or a few cocktails, you're up for that walk and that exploration. There's something about your demeanor that gets really optimistic.

Yeah. And I don't think a couple of glasses of wine would have changed that. in that scenario. Maybe the speed at which I was then naked and running towards the water would have changed.

Okay. Yeah.

But to be fair, Lauren was on board. She was only a few steps behind me. And so I'm sprinting into the water and I get to, I don't know, maybe knee deep, and all of a sudden there's a sharp pain in my foot. And so I do what you would do if you have a sharp pain in your foot. I sort of drop down into the water in the process, kind of spin a bit.

Oh.

And hundreds of them. Like a sea urchin minefield, essentially, is what I've waded into.

And they're spiny and they puncture.

Oh.

So you went swimming on a cactus.

Essentially. Ooh. It's at this point. my eyes have adjusted. I can pick my way back out through them.

Oh, boy. Poisoned.

Not making 100% sense. Yeah, yeah. Lauren kind of goes, we both have had the same amount to drink. Something's going on. And so, of course, she gets a little bit of panic of what, if he's been poisoned?

Yeah.

We had a cell phone, but we weren't using it. We were just connecting to Wi-Fi. Like, we literally never carried it. And so the plan was to get me back to the van and figure it out from there. And so we go back up the steps.

Are you scared yet?

No. I have no concept of what's going on.

You don't know that you're super intoxicated looking.

Not a clue. And so she flags down this group of girls. It's kind of at this point of the night where a lot of the story is now going to be referenced in her story, because I don't remember a lot of it. I have flashes of it. I remember these girls being very done up.

Oh, God. This is bad. Yeah, this is nosedive.

They call the ambulance. The ambulance shows up. Lauren explains the situation, of course. And immediately, they say, there's nothing poisonous. He's drunk.

They want to write you off. They've seen a million of these North Americans come through. They just can't handle their alcohol. In their fancy $1,000 vans.

Yeah, exactly. Can't handle it. And so there's a bit of a discussion about it. And they get me on a stretcher. They wheel me back to the ambulance.

To sleep it off while we're in Croatia. Liability's not as big of an industry there.

Yeah, and so flash to the next morning, I wake up and Lauren fills me in on the details. And I wake up with what can only have been considered the worst hangover, sickness, feeling, whatever you want to call it I've ever felt. We decide to move on. The campground's expensive. And I'm kind of like, I'm out.

Okay, kind of.

But also, we drove down windy roads. It was hilly. Oh, no. And so we make our way out and Lauren gives it her best attempt to get back up that hill. After a few attempts, we kind of sit there and I'm, as you do when you're not feeling great, struggling to even keep my eyes open.

It's gotta be sea urchins. A hundred percent. Yeah.

You would think, you know, we were both doing the same thing, drinking the same thing. They even said it was drugs. at one point. That was what the paramedics said. And I was sort of like, I don't have a Croatian drug guy hanging out.

Yeah, yeah. I don't have a hookup. So you'd thrown up. Did you end up shitting yourself at all? Is that part of this?

I could have guessed you were going to ask that. No, there wasn't any poop involved.

So I had a very similar experience in life. I was at the beach in Santa Barbara. I was 20 years old. I went out swimming. I guess my conclusion at this point is I must have got stung by a jellyfish or something.

They were so adamant that it wasn't that. That's what's interesting. But in my head I'm thinking they're not marine biologists. Do they really know all of the things that are in this area?

They've been told don't bring anyone to this hospital unless we absolutely have to have them.

Especially if they're North American.

And they haven't paid into this healthcare system. Yeah, fuck.

Yeah.

Oh, wow. Well, Callahan, I'm glad you made it out of there. Did you end up marrying Lauren?

That's an excellent question. And actually the person who told me to submit to this would like to potentially say hi.

Okay, this is Lauren. Hi, Monica. Hi, Daddy. Hi, we have a Bambino.

Yeah, this is Brynn. Oh, Brynn.

Oh, look at Brynn's beautiful. Is Brynn's skin so soft?

Oh, so soft.

Oh, it looks really soft. So you believe that it was a poison, right?

It was definitely not just the wine. Yeah. We had the same amount. It was instantaneous. When he came out of the water, he was slurring.

They've dealt with too many drunk vacationers.

Exactly. They were like an allergy to the sulfites or something. I was like, yeah, but we've been drinking lots of wine on this trip. Yeah. Never had this problem.

I'm with you guys. There was a poisoning in that Croatian body of water.

I think so, yeah. I want to say one thing to Monica. Race to 35.. I loved that series.

Oh, thank you.

We were going through fertility treatment when I was listening to that, and it made a not great experience, comfortable and humorous, so really appreciated that.

Thank you so much. Incredible. And it worked. Yay!

It did.

And our good friend Robin's been the one that suggested that we should listen to you guys, so big shout out to her.

Thank Robin for us. Yeah.

We would have told her that we were on. We told her Cal submitted, but she would have banged the door down and moved us in here.

Well, we're delighted to have all you aboard. So nice meeting you guys.

Thank you so much.

All right, bye. That was a really cute baby. Okay, I think I know what happened. Oh. So Putin was in town.

Urchin's razor. Oh, my God.

I can't resist.

All right, here's Heather.

Hello, is this Heather? Yes. Hi, nice to meet you in your closet.

Thank you. I am a real follower, Monica.

I appreciate it. I didn't want to say anything. We've had a lot of calls today. Almost nobody's been in their closet, and I've been upset. Well, one person was in their closet, but there was no clothes in it, which is almost worse.

I am in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Oh, wonderful. We do not get to talk to many Oklahomans. What do we say?

Okies.

Okies, okay. So you have a beach story.

I do.

Hit us with it.

So this was back in 2013.

Oh. In Corpus or in Padre Island?

Padre. I'm looking at the website, and it looks so romantic. The horses are, like, trotting in the water. Private beach. Sun is setting.

That's a lot of horses, by the way. Too many. You're getting kicked. Not great. This is a herd.

Yeah, it really is. So they're putting people on horses based on their size, from smallest to largest. And I'm in the first group with about 10 other people. And we get on our horses. But, I mean, we have to wait 45 minutes before the last group gets on.

He's on a Clydesdale. they wheel out some Persharon. It really was. He had to get a stepstool to get his leg up and over the horse.

So I'm at the very front, and he's in the very back. So super romantic. It's about a 200-yard ride on this pedestrian-type path to the beach. You can't see the beach from the stables, though. There's a lot of vegetation there.

Yeah, there's cars on the beach, right? Yep. Erin and I camp there for a week.

So you're familiar, Daxton. It's like hard-packed sand where those cars are driving. It's not loose, soft sand. So my group of 10, we start going out onto the beach, and we take a turn. And I notice we're about 100, 200 feet on the actual beach, and this group of guys in motorcycles come rolling up, about to leave.

Uh-oh.

They all start looking at each other, and they're talking. I can't make out what they're doing, but I just get this bad feeling, like something's not right. And they all start revving their engines and honking their horse.

Okay.

And the horses just take off.

Oh, my God. Oh, boy. Full stampede. Oh. This is very scary.

These are Texans. It's fine. I'm thinking to myself, I don't know a whole lot about horses. I know, pull the reins.

That's about it.

I know that they're pretty sensitive to human emotion, so try and stay as calm as possible. Don't squeeze your muscles tight on them. Eventually, this thing has to get tired, and it'll stop.

Because it has taken off sprinting at this point? Oh, yeah.

I feel like I'm on a racetrack. Oh.

Oh, my God. This is so scary. Oh, it's just shot out of there and starts racing down the beach.

Yeah, and I think it was worse for our first group, because they had been waiting for 45 minutes. I think they were just primed to go.

Are they running through blankets and coolers? They're staying on the path.

But I'm looking ahead,

and I see one of the guides gets off his horse, lets it go just free, and he stands directly in the path of my horse. Oh. And I'm like, this guy's crazy. What is he doing? Thinking he's going to move like he's been around horses?

They can't see worth a shit, too, right? That's the thing about horses.

Yeah, and they're panicking. So it just full steam ahead, and he ends up lunging and jumping at the front of my horse and screaming at it. Oh, wow.

Wild. Bravado. Sends the horse full stop,

rears up,

bucks me off the back. Oh. I go flying.

What did this guy think? Oh, my God. I don't know.

I'm not even sure he knows what he was thinking. Ugh. So I go off the back. Everything's spinning, sand's coming up, and then all of a sudden, I feel pow right in the back of my head and black.

Wait. Another horse.

I mean, there's horses everywhere.

Oh, my God. This is a nightmare. You know, I'm scared of horses. Are you a ghost? Are you alive?

So I wake up on the beach, and this stranger from one of the tents comes, and he's screaming at me, and he pulls me off the beach, and he puts me in a lawn chair. His daughter's getting ice from a cooler and putting it on the back of my head. I can't figure out what's going on. I feel like the monkey in the circus. Everyone's just circling and just staring.

Oh, boy. He's on the phone,

and he's asking me, who's the president? What year is it? And I said, look, stop asking me questions about the president. Go find my husband.

He's the guy on the Clydesdale. Yeah, in the back. They find him.

His Clydesdale is still on the beach path eating sunflowers. Oh. Oh, God. Turns out. that guy that pulled me off the beach was an off-duty police officer.

that fell off horses. This is a full massacre.

It really is.

Oh, red wedding. Yeah. They're like,

how are we going to get a fire truck on the beach? They're pretty heavy. I'm like, actually, I'm going to decline. doing that. I couldn't even afford a hotel.

Hospital stay is out. Yes, an ambulance ride. Those are pricey. Pretty adamant, though,

that I needed to go. So, they end up getting one of those, like, ambulance fire truck, medic trucks. I don't know exactly what they're called, but they get it on the beach instead of, like, a full-fledged fire truck.

Yeah, almost like what the lifeguards would drive. Yes.

Yes, exactly. So, they get one of those out there and they get me loaded up. And again, I'm saying, this is pretty expensive. We'll just, like, pack up the Tiburon and head back. It's fine.

Oh, my God. I didn't know that, that they charge two people if one's just accompanying. That is so bad. I mean, I don't know if that's universal. That's the place down there.

You shouldn't have to make these choices.

Yes. Yeah. So we get there.

and I'm just, like, begging the doctor, please get me off this backboard. It's miserable. My leg hurts. And he said, not until we finish scanning you, you are going to glow in the dark by the time we're done.

Oh.

Super reassuring.

So they did some x-rays,

CT scans, and MRI. He comes back with the results and he says, OK, the leg's not broken, but you have a nice indent of a horse hoof to the thigh. That was there for a solid year. Unreal.

Oh, my God. It, like, destroyed the tissue in there or something.

It did. And no internal bleeding, even though I had a bunch of, like, bruising. It was three broken ribs on one side and four cracked.

on the other.

Oh, my God.

That's the worst bone to break. Ended up with.

a pretty big cut on the back of the head that went down to the skull.

Fuck.

Full bone exposed.

From a horse hoof? From a horse hoof. Oh, my God. You are so lucky. Your head got stepped on by a horse.

That's what that big feeling was, when everything went black. And I had no clue what it was. I thought maybe I hit a rock on the beach or something. But that off-duty police officer put in a spectacular report of what he witnessed.

Oh, good.

And so I had that. and then they said, you have a brain bleed on your arm. So you're going to be here for a while.

Being monitored.

and constantly scanned. A neurosurgeon is going to come down. I mean, I just thought I was going out for an anniversary ride with my husband and this has turned into a thing.

Yeah, you're being watched to make sure.

Eventually, we kind of feel safe that it's not going to progress and they are cleaning out the wound and I'm having to lay on those broken ribs while they put the staples in. And I'm in a lot of pain. My husband's like,

let me pull out my phone.

and get a picture. Oh, that's what we have. Can we look now?

Yes, you can look, and it's really terrible. 2013 phone quality. Oh.

I'm having trouble.

Staples in the head. Oh.

Oh, those are the staples. Sure, I see staples. Yeah, and that's my hair.

on the back of my head. I see staples too.

It was a mess.

Just a disaster.

Oh, man. iPhone. 1. Yeah, right?

Really terrible quality. Wow.

How long were you in there? About a day.

Not terrible, but they charged me because it was from that afternoon to the next one.

Two days. Yeah. What responsibility did the horse company take? First of all, I can't even believe they can get insurance for such a thing. I know.

I ended up getting a lawyer, but because of the equestrian laws in Texas, it protects a lot of owners. And so you don't really see much from that. All I have to say, safety first. Wear a helmet. Oh, yeah.

Did they pay for anything?

I got a little bit, like $1,000 out of it. That was about it. Jeez. Jeez, Louise. I didn't get a refund for the ride, by the way.

Oh, my God.

It would have been great if they gave you a voucher for another trip.

Yes, thank you.

And do you have a healthy scar on the back of your head still from it?

Yeah, hair parts around it and everything. Wow. It's wild. Wow, wow, wow. I ended up having to go back to the hospital about a week later.

Yeah. Your brain swelled up.

It was the gift that kept on giving.

Oh, man. Wow. Have you had a redo? Have you guys had a good anniversary trip? yet?

Yeah, we just recently upgraded to a teardrop camper. Really enjoying it.

Yeah, big difference. Heather, great meeting you. Yes. And I'm glad you made it.

Appreciate it, guys.

And shame on you, motorcyclists. Anyone who rides a motorcycle,

That's right. Can I let my husband come say hi real quick?

Of course. Clydesdale. Let's see him. Hello. Hello, how are you?

I'm good.

How are you? Good. We heard that you were on the back on the big horse.

Yes, I was observing everything. So I just watched the horses take off and I was still trying to get down the hill. Finally, they came looking for me and they're yelling, Tyler, where's Tyler? And finally, I'm like, I'm here. They're like, your wife fell off the horse and the guy from the ranch or whatever was like, you need to stay on your horse.

I'm getting off the damn horse. Well, why? Also, you need to stay?

on your horse.

when your wife has gotten thrown off? They're like, the liability right now is in the trash. We've got four people down. We can't have him get off. I know.

I saw her cut on her head and I could see down her skull. I was like, we're going to be here for a while. It's not going to be fun. Yeah.

It was huge.

Absolutely. I'm glad that she got to meet you guys and tell a story.

Yeah. Nice to meet you. All right. Okay. Bye.

but.

Here we go.

Okay. You know how. she said she had the mark on her leg for a year? Yeah. So I have a mark on my leg from these shorts, actually.

I'm so nervous.

Don't be nervous. Zero pressure. Who's your friend, Christy?

This is my Aaron Weekly.

Oh, wonderful. Everyone should be so lucky.

Yeah. Luckily, she's my cousin, too.

Oh, perfect. That's nice. It's in the blood. Where are you?

I live in a suburb right outside of Philadelphia, right near Tina Fey. Ding, ding, ding. Oh. Very close to where she's from.

I don't even think I knew she was from Philadelphia. I read her book, too. Yeah.

She's from right outside of Philadelphia.

You've got a lot of people to point to. What are you two laughing at? You read her book?

I don't know why I said that. I mean, I did read it,

but it made no sense. Miss Bossy Pants? Regular Bossy Pants. But you've got all kinds of people to be claiming these days. You've got Bradley.

Yes.

We have less in Detroit, I think. You have you. You have Kristen. Bob Seger.

I have Kevin Hart. Oh, that's pretty good.

Great one. Oh, Will Smith, Philadelphia. And Fresh Prince. Pound for pound. Both of them.

Yes.

Okay, so, Christy, you have a crazy beach story. Where and when does it take place?

This took place last year, one year ago, in St. Pete Beach, Florida.

St. Pete. Okay, where is that? That's Gulfside?

Gulfside, yes.

Okay, by Sarasota? Yes. Okay.

Okay, so, this was our family vacation last year. It was my husband, myself, and two of my three kids. Beautiful resort. One of the days, we decided to run jet skis.

Great place for a bad story to start. Jet skis. Yes, exactly.

I am not afraid of the ocean. I know we are in their habitat. So, my husband is on one with my youngest, and I'm on one with my middle. We have about an hour, and we have a lot of freedom. Too much freedom.

I'm like, oh boy. Oh, God. He's got to blow off some steam.

So, he goes and he just takes off. We don't see him for a while.

We're jumping off the back.

Me and my kids still having a great time. So, we see him coming back towards us from a little bit far away. He's like, Chris, Chris,

come here.

There's a shark eating a dolphin.

Oh, oh, oh. Come here. There's a shark eating a dolphin. You got two kids with you. Come closer to this.

But you know what I did? Come on. Let's go. Let's go. We got to see this.

Oh, wow.

My kids are like, Mom, no. We don't want to go. I'm like, get on. Let's go. We're not missing this.

Wow.

But I'm still like, let's go. Come on. We can't miss this. You see the shark on your knees. It's creeping around.

Oh, my God.

Let me backtrack. When my husband saw it, he saw just a dolphin like thrashing out of the water, and he gets up close. He did get a good video of this. Oh, my God. I did send this.

Are we allowed to post it? Yes.

Okay.

Oh, wonderful. People will love it. I'll let you watch it. Oh, my Lord.

Just wait. You'll see the shark.

Ooh. It's getting red.

Ooh.

Oh, yuck.

Oh, there's the intestine.

No.

I should have warned you. I'm sorry.

Well, you kind of did. The only question I would have is, how certain were you? it was a dolphin? I don't see the dead. I mean, I see blood everywhere.

Pre-video, my husband saw the dolphin out of the water. Okay. So, we're approaching. My kids are scared. They're holding on tight.

This is against the waiver you signed. You're in violation of your agreement at this point.

Do you want to guess what happened, Dax?

One of the kids fell in. Into the blood pool with a shark?

We all fell in. Oh, my God. All three of you fell in. Oh, no. Oh, my God.

Everyone looked at once.

We flipped. My kids are screaming, screaming. I lock eyes with my husband. He's watching in horror. Just horror.

Oh, my God. He's out there. He can't swim. Oh, you guys. Talk about city folk.

Why does he want to rip it?

if he can't swim? This is a bad idea.

Bad idea. Somehow, I get them out of there in, it felt like, 10 seconds. I just asked my husband. He said it was a good, like, 30 to 35 seconds.

Okay.

Thankfully, the jet ski flipped itself back upright. I got them right up the back, and then I'm getting in. They're like, get out.

Yes, they think you're going to get eaten by a shark.

My husband, you know, there's nothing he can do, but watch. We get back on. We're starting to flee the shark. My kids are like, Dad went back. He went back for his croc.

He lost a croc in all this? Oh, my God. This whole thing doesn't bode well for husbands, does it? Any armchair anonymous.

The husbands are always the flame.

They're the problem.

So, we make it back, and we go and we tell all the workers what we just saw, and all you see is, like, 12 workers hopping on jet skis, heading back right to where we were. They wanted a closer look.

Of course. This is my crew. Does this all feel very foreign? You see that, got to get their look at it. Well, foreign to me.

I got the better end of that shark story.

I wonder if you had heard that story, if you guys would have gone closer to the shark. Although, yeah, that one was a great white story, and that was not a great white.

I think it's maybe like a hammerhead, or I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was not even that far from the beach. It was very close. I could have stood there, and I'm only 5'4".

Ooh. Oh, those kids, I bet they remember that trip to Florida.

Yeah, they do. Last night, I was like, what do you remember from that? Just to freshen my memory, I'm going to tell this story. And my one son said, I don't even like to talk about that. I don't even like to think about that.

Trauma. And my youngest,

he wanted to be here to come in at the end, but he is at a baseball game right now. I said, what would you have said? He said, that I was screaming.

This is a detail that mustn't be forgotten. Oh, wow. Oh, my Lord. What a funny family disaster. Yes, exactly.

I would do the same thing again.

I would, too. Just for the memory. There's a weird overlap between the hillbilly gene and then the whatever this Philly suburb gene is.

We sound alike.

Yeah. It's almost like some kind of redneckism here.

A little bit.

Gotta get close to the action.

Thank you. Can my Aaron Weakley come out?

and say hello? Yeah, yes, please.

It's so nice to meet you. We are diehard armcherries.

Oh, that makes us so happy. Does Christy's story make you want to vacation with her or not vacation with her?

I know her family. I know what they get themselves into, so I couldn't say that I was surprised. Uh-huh. Her sister-in-law, however, when she texted the story to the family, replied with, Please stop doing white people shit.

Yeah, very white people shit. Getting a closer look at the shark.

Dax, we have to say, being from Philly, we adore the way that you say Philadelphia.

Okay, I'm clearly saying it wrong.

It's my favorite thing in the world.

How do you say it?

Philadelphia.

Can't even hear the difference. No, I don't even know what I'm saying. You make it an O instead of an E. Okay, Philadelphia, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

We love it, and we also know that you love a compliment and you love a good-looking boy. There's actually a player right now on our baseball team, the Phillies, who looks like a baby Dax.

Really?

You need to look him up. He's a cutie. His name's Bryson Stott.

Okay. We'll have to look him up. This might be the first comparison I like.

He's a cutie. You guys are twins. You will be very flattered.

Okay, wonderful. Thank you, ladies. All right, well, nice meeting you both.

Take good care. Take good care.

Oh, we will take good care. Bye. Bye, ladies.

This guy.

I can see it. I can barely see. As long as you guys think he's handsome, I'm grateful. Okay, good. I'm grateful.

Oh, I can't hear you.

Oh, you can't hear us. We can hear you.

Oh, now I can. Now I can. Yay.

Wonderful. Is this, Carrie?

This is Carrie.

Where are you at?

I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona. Oh.

Not too far. I've done some filming in Flagstaff. Do you go to Sedona a lot? You're so close.

I do go to Sedona a lot.

It's so nice there. We love it. The stargazing, which I'm sure is equally as good in Flagstaff.

Yeah, Flagstaff is actually the first international dark sky city. Fun fact.

Oh. Tell us more about that.

That's all I know. It's on the sign when you drive into town. Okay, wonderful. The stargazing here is amazing. Like, just walking out in my front yard, it's pretty incredible.

Yeah, we were endlessly entertained by it every night we were in Sedona. Loved it. Also, we loved Enchantment, the hotel. Have you been there? Yeah.

Not in Flagstaff. This actually took place in Hawaii. So this story took place in 2014.. My boyfriend, Kevin, and I had planned a Christmas vacation to Hawaii. He had been there a few times for work.

What island are you on?

Kauai. The Kalalau Trail is an 11-mile, point-to-point trail along the Napali Coast. And it has been named one of the most beautiful hikes in America, but also one of the most dangerous.

Because people live out there, right? My last week of drinking was 20 years ago, coming up. And it was there, and my friend and I went to the mouth of that trailhead. Two people from the mainland that were on vacation were coming out of there absolutely terrorized, because someone cut up their tent with a machete and needed a ride to town. And I was like, what's going on on this trail?

Well, luckily, that isn't the type of danger we encountered.

Thank God, okay.

But good to know. We actually had pretty good experiences with the locals who lived at the end of the trail on Kalalau Beach. But one of the reasons that the trail is super dangerous is there are a bunch of really exposed sections of trail where you're essentially hiking on the edge of a cliff. And it parts, it narrows down to like one to two feet wide.

Oh, my God.

There's a section of the trail called Crawler's Ledge. And it's just notorious for being very scary and a little dangerous. So the trail is about one foot wide and you're walking on the edge of a cliff that goes down about a hundred feet to sharp rocks and waves crashing against them.

And you're wearing a big backpack, presumably.

Yeah, a big backpacking backpack, probably like 40 or 50 pounds. So it's definitely a no fall zone. Oh my God, scary.

My hands are sweaty just thinking about it.

I had watched a couple of YouTube videos about Crawler's Ledge before the trip, which was probably not a great idea. So I was a little nervous, but, like I said, I'm like a big hiker. So I felt like I could handle it. So we start our trip and it was an 11 mile hike to the end of the trail, which ends at a beach called Kalalau Beach. So our plan was to hike in the first day, camp at Kalalau Beach for two nights and then hike out.

All right, strike two, Kevin, okay.

I know. So morning came and the good news was that our tent didn't get washed away to sea, but the bad news was that it was still raining. The rest of that next day. it never stopped raining. So we went over 24 hours with a constant heavy rain.

Was it cold?

It was, yeah, and obviously I was not prepared for cold going to Hawaii, so I maybe had like one long sleeve shirt. Everything was muddy. The water and mud was like seeping into our tent and that was the day that we were supposed to hike back out. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen. We were just kind of stuck in our tent.

Do you have water? Are you claiming it from the rain? Are you trying to gather some?

I don't have a super good memory of that. I'm sure we had a water filter and where the waterfall was, I would imagine that there was like clean water there to filter. So we were back at camp on, this would be day four, the reality setting in that the day before we were supposed to have hiked out, we had a hotel reservation, like a super nice hotel that we were missing. So the next day was Christmas Eve and we woke up on Christmas Eve. Really nice day.

They're embarrassed all of a sudden. Anyone else would be delighted to hear their names. Yeah.

I was like, please call my name. I want to get out of here. The pilot said, I'm here to take you guys back to the trailhead. Grab your stuff. Let's go.

A week or so.

Oh, my God.

Not, we're going to call the Coast Guard and they'll come get you. Why can't they just come back and get you guys? Well, they're privateers, but why wouldn't the Coast Guard? Seems like the Coast Guard should. I guess.

I can't remember who it was that came to get us. I actually talked to my little sister about this story earlier today, and her memory of it was that it was the National Guard.

Right. That makes sense.

But it was a tiny little helicopter. And he said, you know, you guys aren't in any danger. You have shelter. It's not supposed to storm for several days. You just have to wait for the trail to dry out and for the stream crossings to go down, and you can hike yourselves out whenever that is.

Tough love they gave you. Yes. Seriously.

I just kept thinking like tomorrow is Christmas. Yeah. I'm spending Christmas starving on this beach. that is now not even that pretty. It's like debris covered beach.

Well, good though. You know, you could have been out of there the day before, two days before. Yeah, Kevin kind of earned it. Also, he's taller. Okay, yeah.

Kristen and I got the most epic tour of the Nepali coast. This little helicopter was doorless and I was on the end. So it was like an unobstructed view of these really lush green mountains and 300 foot waterfalls all over the place. So we landed back at the trailhead. It dawned on us that we didn't have a car key.

Oh my God. What a disaster. It makes me never want to do something like that. But that you're undeterred, right? You kept hiking trails.

Undeterred. And I think if I would have had that experience now, it wouldn't have bothered me as much. But at the time I was 24, this is maybe like my second or third backpacking trip ever. So I wasn't as hardened as I probably am now.

It reminds me of your mushroom trip. There is some element that you were like, should have been like, well, I guess we're going to have Christmas on a beach. Yeah. And I'm going to embrace this. Oof, that's rough.

You're both amazing. Thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you. especially you, for Race to 35.. I'm not even going to have children, but just listening to an entire podcast series that was focused on women's health and women's experiences was really incredible.

I appreciate that so much. Oh, I like that compliment. Thank you, Carrie. Nice meeting you. You too.

Have a great day. All right, you too.

Take care. Buddy, I'm so proud of you. We hear that so much. Good job. Thanks.

Oh, I thought you meant.

ice on the trail. Both are really bad.

All right.

Well, love you.

Love you, too.

Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song.

Oh.

Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions and with the help of arm cherries, we'll get some suggestions. We're gonna ask some On the Flyer Rhyme Dish. On the Flyer Rhyme Dish.