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Haley with Explore More
27 Plays14 days ago
Join Alasdair and Haley as we talk about North Texas having GREAT resources for those who love the outdoors!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Outdoorsy Educator Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Outdoorsy Educator Podcast, the show where curiosity meets the open road. I'm your host Alistair and I invite you to join me as we explore the world through travel, nature, getting outside and the power of learning.
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Speaker
Each episode we will dive into stories from inspiring educators, adventurers and global citizens who are reshaping what it means to learn whether it's in a classroom, on a mountain trail, or even halfway across the world.
00:00:31
Speaker
From backpacking trips that change your perspective to educational journeys that transform communities, we will cover it all. So pack your curiosity, lace up your boots, and let's discover how the world teaches
Podcast Sponsorship and Offers
00:00:44
Speaker
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00:00:44
Speaker
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00:00:56
Speaker
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00:01:11
Speaker
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Speaker
You'll find Whole Earth in Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio, or anytime online at wholeearthprovision.com. And hey, because you're rolling with the Outdoorsy Educator podcast, here's a little extra love. Use the code OUTDOORSYEDU for 20% off your next adventure at Whole Earth.
Personal Touch: Alistair and Granddaughter
00:01:49
Speaker
Well, hello listeners. Before we get into this episode, i just wanted to let you know that during the recording, I had my 10-week-old granddaughter in my arms the whole time. She was wonderfully well-behaved for all of this interview.
00:02:04
Speaker
But being 10 weeks old, there was some cooing, the odd shout, she needed fed, a few things like that. I've tried to edit out what I can, but she makes an appearance a couple of times during this episode. So just wanted to let you know that that's what the background noise was. It didn't disturb the interview at all. and just ask for a little grace and patience as you listen if it disturbs any of your listening.
Origins and Mission of Explore More
00:02:31
Speaker
But with that being said, let's get into the interview with Hayley from Explore More.
00:02:39
Speaker
And on this week's episode of the Outdoorsy Educator podcast, we have fellow North Texan Hayley. Hayley, how are you today? Good, how are you? Oh, doing very well. I have a co-host on my end, my almost 10-week-old granddaughter. So if there is cooing, burping, anything like that, it's coming from the little one. So please ah excuse us, listeners, as we record this with the baby in tow. Oh, most precious co-host ever. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Pretty partial to her. But Hayley, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, and about Explore More?
00:03:18
Speaker
Of course. Thank you. um My name's Haley. Me and my husband started Explore More about five, six years ago, just kind of as a side gig thing. And we kind of started it just with the goal of getting people outside more often, checking out local North Texas trails.
00:03:32
Speaker
So we we would lead hike. We started out with hike and brews. So I really like breweries like local. And when my kids were little, we, that's where we would go to like hang out. So we would actually find, um, a local brewery near the trail and I would do a guided hike. And then we would all go to the brewery afterwards and hang out.
00:03:50
Speaker
Um, we've done it with coffee shops. And then I started adding in yoga. And then I started having people show up to these hikes and say like, either I'm a yoga instructor. I want to do this on the trail near my house, or live 10 minutes away. I didn't know this trail existed.
00:04:05
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And so we started training yoga instructors and training other outdoor leaders. And then we also started making trail bingo cards with just local trails all over North Texas, um kind of making it a more gamified way of just exploring new trails.
00:04:20
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And then we recently have turned those trail bingo cards into an app. And we have funtivity challenges that have monthly activities that you can do, as well as daily quests, all free, all with the goal of just getting people outside more often and discovering new locations.
Hayley's Passion for the Outdoors
00:04:38
Speaker
I love it. So before Explore More was even an idea for you and your husband, what was your experience with the outdoors? Were you somebody who liked to go hiking, camping, yoga, that kind of thing?
00:04:49
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Yes. So I grew up in the country, My parents had 10 acres. My grandparents who were catty corner from us had like five acres. And so I would literally go, there was like a Creek that separated our properties. So I would literally go over the river and through the woods and I would end up in my grandma's backyard.
00:05:08
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And so i grew up doing that. I, we always camped, we always hiked. But I had like a deep desire from a very young age to explore an adventure. Like before I even knew what backpacking was,
00:05:21
Speaker
I remember thinking like I would tell my parents when I was like eight, nine years old, I was like, I want to just go walk through the rainforest and not know where I'm going. <unk>s so Wonderful. You've had that wanderlust since the beginning. Yes.
00:05:34
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And they were like, okay, I mean, that's that would be a little dangerous. I'm like, that's okay. I'll figure it out. I like wanted desperately to be in Boy Scouts, but when I was a kid, girls couldn't join Boy Scouts. And so my kids are now, my daughters are now in Cub Scouts. They love it.
00:05:49
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um But I want, I just wanted to learn all that. And then when I got to college, I discovered a backpacking company in Wyoming called SRAM. solid rock outdoor ministries and they do backpacking trips all through the rockies and i did a my very first backpacking trip that i've ever done was a 40 day backpacking trip in wyoming you know hit the ground running right i know i was 19 20 i was dumb and thought i could handle anything um But did you know did you see you through it through? Did you do it? I did. i did. There you go. So you could handle everything. yes It was by far the hardest and most amazing thing I've ever done.
00:06:29
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um Other than like birthing my children. right That's an illegal its own. Yep. Yes. So, but it it was, there were days that I was like, I remember I turned around at one point it was sleeting on us. My backpack was probably 50 pounds.
00:06:43
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um We were, 15, 20 miles from the nearest trailhead. And I turned around to my guy I was like, what do you do when you can't keep going? was like, I'm exhausted. I'm cold. I'm wet. Like, what do I do? And she's like, you keep going.
00:06:56
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was like, there's no other option. She's like, I mean, we can call a helicopter in if you're dying. was like, okay. Not that dramatic, right? Literally have no other option. So you just keep going.
00:07:08
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um And it was incredible. And I've done multiple trips with them since then, not 40 days again, but right I've done the Grand Canyon with them. I've done Zion. Me and my husband have done Colorado, Big Bend. we've he did a backpacking trip with outward bound when he was 18 and so that's actually what we bonded on when we met that's my friend was like hey you should meet this girl she's done a backpacking trip and he's like oh i did a backpacking trip his was 23 days mine was 40 please don't ever let him forget that no right um so that's kind of what we bonded over and we've kind of
00:07:43
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That's kind of been our shared passion since we met.
Backpacking Challenges and Local Exploration
00:07:46
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And we kept saying we were going to move to Colorado or we're going to move to Wyoming or somewhere. um And we've now been married. so we got married in 2013. So almost 13 years. Right. And we're still in Texas. Right.
00:07:59
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So we finally were like, you know what? We can't keep waiting to go to Colorado before we do something. So let's just it here. So we started exploring more here. I love that. it ah Your story reminds me my friend and author, Derek Lugo. His very first night in a tent was night was day one on the Appalachian Trail. Oh, wow. He never camped before. He read a Walk in the Woods, a famous book by Bill Bryson, and decided, I'm just going to do it, never having done anything in the outdoors, really. Those my favorite stories, though. Yeah.
00:08:31
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Right? Right. Absolutely. Now, I've got to ask you on a personal note. my My wife is going out of time with her mom in a few weeks for four or five days, and I'm contemplating a drive down to Big Bend.
00:08:43
Speaker
Okay. Worth it? Yes. I mean, it looks outstanding. It's different. it's it's Yes. I want to get down there. Yeah. If you've never been before, it's 100% worth it.
00:08:55
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Right. um I will say, out of all the trips we've done, i think me and my husband would both say Big Bend was the hardest. Okay. Yeah. And it was only a three-day backpacking trip. But I think the difference was you have to carry all your water.
00:09:11
Speaker
Right. So our backpacks were way heavier than we were used to. Um, and the ground was gravel the whole time. Like there was not any, right at least the route we did, we did the outer mountain loop. And so, um, it was like gravel the whole time. And so we both had blisters and shoes that we've done huge trips in and have never had blisters. but and so yeah yeah and so we were dying and um by the last we hiked one night couldn't find a campsite we ended up we ended up we are very big leave no trace people and so we try really hard to find the perfect campsite not make one but we ended up having to make a campsite the first night because we just couldn't find a spot right that that was had no cactus or anything in the way um
00:09:57
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And then the second night we ended up finding an abandoned house. So we ended up being able to put our tent up there, but we ended up just stashing our backpacks because we were about half a mile from the road.
00:10:08
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And so we ended up stashing our backpacks and then we hiked the last nine miles without our backpacks sal on. Right. Because we were so tired. We were like, we got it. And we booked it out, got in our car, drove all the way back around, which was like an hour and a half long drive to where we were. Right. um And then hiked and grabbed our backpacks and left. That's you've got to do you've got to do. It's a very cool spot.
00:10:30
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It looks it's just very different. So i want to we literally middle of as middle of nowhere as you can get. So this is a friend and I have joked a lot about, um he's an English guy and we've joked a lot about getting a Land Rover, like a good old British car and taking it down there. And he's like, absolutely not. You need a reliable mode of transportation down there. um I think we got there at like, um we got there at dark and we like entered into the entrance and it was still like hours of driving before we got to the visitor center. That's what I've heard that you you see the welcome to Big Ben sign and then it's still a good hour. oh yeah. It was nuts.
00:11:12
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Yeah. and we And we like slept in our car the first night and then like stepped off the next morning. Yeah. It was nuts. But i would love to go back. And actually like stay in one of the Airbnbs or something and actually do some of like the really famous hikes.
00:11:27
Speaker
But also it is a nine hour drive. And so I am kind of like, if I'm going to drive nine hours at this point, I might as well add three more and be in Colorado. So there is that. There is, right? It's like, okay, I could do these other things. We have no immediate plans to leave Texas, but you never know what the future holds. And I just know if for some reason we left tomorrow, I'd regret it. That would be, I've seen kind of everything else in Texas, you know, all the big stuff. I want to see, I've climbed Guadalupe Peak. I've walked the Lone Star Trail. I've done a lot of other stuff, but haven't been down to Big Bend. And that's- Yeah, you need to go. It would bug me if I didn't. If your wife doesn't want to go with you, that's the only thing. If she wants to go with you, then don't go without her.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah, owner a sheet sheet if I was going to Colorado- um oh here we go she would be all about it like she likes green me too
Discovering Local Trails with Explore More
00:12:19
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she's from the northeast and she likes the mountains up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and that's where she's home um but I just want to see and the same way i mean I know some people love the desert and I love to see it like I've been to Zion um I've been to the Grand Canyon and they're amazing and I'm glad I've seen them but if I have the choice I will probably choose green
00:12:41
Speaker
I'm right there with you. Grand Canyon was, I mean, ridiculously impressive. Oh, incredible. But yeah, give me some rolling green hills and yes I'm very happy. um So i I'm quite excited to have you on being a fellow North Texas resident because I'm sure you hear a lot of the same things I do. Like when people go hiking in North Texas, that doesn't really go hand in hand and they want to be polite.
00:13:06
Speaker
um But there can't be any hike. So what do you say to people when they can't say, well, there's no trails. There's no way to hike. This is Dallas. What's the response you give?
00:13:18
Speaker
So typically I will say like, you're right. It's not, I mean, if depending on where you're from, like it's not Colorado, you're not going to be bagging peaks. and You're not going to going on these crazy long trails. And i's like, but there's actually quite if there's actually a very impressive trail system in DFW. Right. um And depending on who I'm talking to, like I've talked, I'm not a big mountain biker, but my husband is. Right. um And so Dorba, for example, Dorba is an incredible organization in Dallas that manages all of these multi-use trails.
00:13:48
Speaker
And I've actually talked to quite a few and mountain bikers who were like, people don't understand that the Dallas mountain biking trail system is actually pretty impressive. Right. um Compared to other cities.
00:13:58
Speaker
I'm not a mountain baker either, but I've got friends that are impressed by this door. buck yeah And so I'm like, there's lots of trails here, but they're going to be smaller, but you're still going to be surprised that you're like, hey, I feel like I'm in the middle of the woods, but I'm like five minutes from 75.
00:14:13
Speaker
then And so people don't always realize that those places exist. And so i just always encourage people to be like, even if it looks small and unimpressive, then you should still go check it out. and Which is half the reason why we made the trail bingo cards with like all of these different trails, no matter how small they are to just be like, go check them out because they might be in your right, but right, right in your back backyard.
00:14:34
Speaker
And you never know. I mean, I have a small trail here in my town that if I have meetings or if I have to be somewhere and I have 10 minutes to kill, i can go out there and go walk in the woods for 10 minutes and then go back to my car go to my meeting. And it's a great pause. like Other than like driving and sitting in my car and scrolling my phone for 10 minutes. Right. like If you have the two options, then might as well get outside.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah, why not? I mean we um out live right in Denton, and we have Clear Creek, yeah um which you've been to, and that's where I believe we met, right? Yes. We've done a couple of hiking yogas with them. One of my guides, who is one of my nature yoga certified guides,
00:15:11
Speaker
does hike and yoga and forest bathing at Clear Creek. Right. And it's, have you ever walked around the trail? It's about three miles. No, every time I've been there, it's been flooded. It does. It does flood easily. And that's just, it it does. That's another thing people don't understand in North Texas and probably in a lot of places is most of our trails are on floodplains.
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah. That does cause a little bit of an obstacle, but that that's when you use the paved trails. Right. It's okay. We have alternatives. I mean, but I'm three miles or so from Clear Creek and a lot of people right here don't know it exists.
00:15:43
Speaker
and you And you could be... 10 minutes into it and you would think you were in the smoky mountains or something like that you really get that that green tunnel feeling where you are just surrounded by trees and you've got no idea how far the road is away it's it's beautiful and and it's not unique there's lots of places like this around yeah we all have we have a denton trail bingo card did have you downloaded it I have not done the Denton one. I've seen one of your original ones. I forget which one was. I've yeah not seen the Denton one. Well, on the app, we have a Denton one. I mean, um they're not all in Denton city limits, but they're all like in the area.
00:16:18
Speaker
I will find it. i think that would be fantastic. um Before we kind of move on to, I've got few questions for you as we start to round this up. If people want to find out more about Explore More or perhaps get inspired to do something in their own city, where can they find you? Where can they ask you questions? Yeah. So it's exploremore.fun.
00:16:36
Speaker
Like that's our website. That's our Instagram handle. And our app is just exploremore. All one word. Fantastic. Yeah, I know quite active on Instagram and I'm sure on other social media too. Instagram's my favorite. I know I should be using TikTok and all those things, but until I hire somebody. and right there with you. And sorry, do it again she is just a second. that She is.
00:17:00
Speaker
Oh, no. Not happy, but she'll be on it. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I can pretty much handle Facebook, TikTok. I'm sorry, um Instagram, but TikTok and things like that, I'm learning. Oh, yeah. I'm trying.
00:17:15
Speaker
It'll take a little bit.
Inspirations and Personal Stories
00:17:16
Speaker
um but i've got three questions that always like to ask everybody who comes on the podcast and the first one is is there i'm sorry she's almost um i can't even hear her she's doing great oh good yes she she's right by my ear um is there a book or a piece of music that you would say has inspired you more than any other in your life oh gosh
00:17:42
Speaker
A book or like in in outdoors or just in general? Anything, anything at all. Okay. It can be any walk in and any realm of your life. Yeah. um Well, i my faith is very important to me, so I feel like I would be a hypocrite if I didn't say the Bible. right Well, there you go. Right. um But, and the actual Bible, not people's interpretation of it. Right, right. That could be a whole other episode. Yeah, that could be a whole other conversation. um So there's actually this book called
00:18:13
Speaker
get your life back. Okay. By John Eldridge. That's really, really good that I read during COVID that is actually really good about just kind of taking control of your life again and not letting the little screens and the world control your thoughts.
00:18:33
Speaker
It's super good. i love John Eldridge. I love everything he writes. um And then as far as music, Oh, I don't know. Okay. it's my So this isn't a specific piece of music. Okay. But my husband actually made me a playlist on Spotify.
00:18:51
Speaker
and this is super cheesy and has nothing to do with the outdoors. hunt But my my father actually unexpectedly passed away in 2021. And was... and i was obviously grieving and having a really hard time and didn't really know what to do.
00:19:05
Speaker
And my poor husband was like, I don't know how to help you. Like how, right i don't know what to do. and I was like, I don't know either. i was like, I'd, I don't know how, I don't know what, i don't know what I need from you. um And he literally stayed up all night one night and like made me this playlist on Spotify and the songs on there. i don't know how he found them.
00:19:25
Speaker
I've never even heard of half these bands. Right. But he found them. and But the playlist is phenomenal. i still listen to it all the time. um And some of the bands on there are some of my favorites now. Bethany Bernard wrote her father. She's a singer and her father died and she wrote a whole album on on it called All My Questions. That was really good.
00:19:45
Speaker
rights so any basically any of the songs he put on there have been great. He sounds like a keeper. that's like That's a good thing to do. He's pretty great. I love it.
00:19:56
Speaker
I love it. But something else I always like to ask people is how, as as you've progressed through life and especially with Explore More, you're married, to have children, how has success and the definition of success changed for you?
00:20:12
Speaker
Hmm. um
00:20:16
Speaker
How has it changed? Or has it, maybe it hasn't. I mean, that's always a possibility. hu So I think my definition of success and me and my husband, so we, we run Explorer together and we actually recently both um have taken a step back from our day jobs and and like we're doing this full time now and well working together. i mean, we've ran businesses together, but we haven't been fully focused on one goal together.
00:20:42
Speaker
um right until now and it's been really fun but we've talked about that and he was like what if we never make money and i'm like are we getting people outside are we getting people off their phones like that's i mean yes we have to have make we have to make money to pay bills and stuff um but like my i don't feel like we have failed and unless and this sounds so cliche but i'm like i don't feel like we failed unless we quit and then and we may get to a point where we're like hey this really isn't working like let's go back to having day jobs and just like have regular lives and go to our kids' soccer games and work in an office. Like that's fine. i don't think that that would be considered a failure. the business may be considered a failure because the business did not make it, but I'm fine either way. i mean, we've, we've ran, we've opened a restaurant before and we had, we opened one restaurant and closed it. I'm like, I guess you could consider that a failure, but like,
00:21:36
Speaker
we were able to spin it and it helped out our other restaurant that we had. And like, we, I feel like every time I've had a failure, I've been able to pivot it to feed something else, or at least we learned something like he, he wouldn't have the job he had before this, if it wasn't for the restaurant. And so Right. So, i don' i mean, i need to make a failure is it a failure? If you come out on the other side, having learned a lesson, I'm with you. i don't i I don't know if I really believe in failure unless you just like full on quit.
00:22:06
Speaker
Right. Well, yeah, you just walk away. Yeah, yeah I'm with you because it's all life's lessons. Yeah. It might not turn out the way we originally pictured, but that doesn't mean it wasn't successful. Yeah. A certain goal may have not worked the way you intended, but you can always twist it or pivot it to work out for something else.
Learning from Experiences
00:22:26
Speaker
That's my mother, one of her favorite things to to tell me often is, a you know, to ask yourself, but did it work out? So even sort of situations in my life, as everyone has had that have been very stressful, or you know, the burst pipe or the this, so that you know, the stuff that happens in life.
00:22:43
Speaker
But did it work out in the end? yeah And the answer is, I think, 100% Or even did you learn something? I mean, my seven-year-old right now, she has like this little kid's book. It's like a sports book. And it's just the title is sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.
00:22:57
Speaker
And it's about because they both play soccer. And so it's about sports. And she loves that book. And I think it's so funny because I'm like, out of all the books you have, like that's the one you keep grabbing you want me to read to you.
00:23:07
Speaker
um But it's true. It's like sometimes it works out. Sometimes you learn something. Neither one would be considered a failure to me. And neither are a bad thing at all. I love that. yeah um And the last question I want to ask for you, and you're not allowed to say you're good husband because that's the easy answer. If you could go hiking with tent for 10 miles with anyone in the world, they could be dead, alive, from history, somebody you've met, somebody you haven't met, anybody in that has existed.
00:23:36
Speaker
Who would you like to go for a 10-mile hike with? And give us a little reason why. Oh, gosh. I know. I'm sorry. didn't give me a heads up on of questions. No, don't. It's much more fun when I don't give heads up, I've discovered. Because then you have to kind of go with your gut.
00:23:54
Speaker
It's like my gut said my dad. But then at the same time, I'm like, I don't i don't know if I would, actually. Right. Like, he's he's shown up in my dreams before. And I'm like, I don't want to say bye again.
00:24:06
Speaker
So if I... Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, and I don't know. I mean, maybe maybe that's just a part of this season that I'm in. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if i would want to say bye again. Right. And I know some people are like, I just want one more minute. and I'm like, I mean, I would love that more than anything.
00:24:22
Speaker
But. But saying bye again. You have to say goodbye again. Be brutal. I don't want to do that. And so, i don't know. Maybe that. And then, other than that, I'm trying to think of, like, someone famous. I don't know. No, it doesn't have to be. Yeah.
00:24:38
Speaker
don't know the person that comes to mind right now like my best friend from college who we don't live close to each other so we never see each other i love And she actually went on her honeymoon to Scotland. So can i can I say we get to go to Scotland together and we get to hike there together? I love it. Yeah, you can go hiking to the West Highland Way, which I've done in Scotland. It's a wonderful 100 mile trail. Yeah, it's right outside of Glasgow.
00:25:01
Speaker
Fantastic. Okay, so I'm going to say that. I want to go hiking with her in Scotland. There you go. Perfect
Conclusion and Listener Invitation
00:25:06
Speaker
answer. Well, Hayley, with Explore More, we will put links to Explore More when we put this episode out. I cannot thank you enough for your time.
00:25:14
Speaker
Thank you so much. This is great. Thank you. Bye-bye. like Thank you again to this week's guest and I hope today's episode was as enjoyable for you as it was for me and perhaps even inspired your next adventure. If you did enjoy the show, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review or follow us wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more information at theoutdoorsyeducator.com or follow us on Instagram, TikTok or Facebook. Until next time, thank you so much for listening to
00:25:47
Speaker
The Outdoorsy Educator Podcast.