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Episode 2 - A Nation's Park with Chase Sult
12 Plays1 year ago
This week we are joined by a very special guest Chase Sult. We get a rundown of Chase's childhood learning about the poor luck he had in youth sports, about being a double dash champ, and that he has done A LOT of Hiking.
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Transcript
00:00:12
Speaker
Gonna
Introduction to Afternoon Delights
00:00:13
Speaker
find my baby, gonna hold her tight Gonna grab some afternoon delight My motto's always been when it's right
00:00:24
Speaker
Good afternoon, Delights. I am your host, Matt Latimer, and we are back for our second episode of Afternoon Delights, just trying to cheer up your day and bring a little joy to your week, help you push through to the weekend. But I couldn't
Meet Chase Saltchase
00:00:39
Speaker
do that alone, so I have brought in a very special guest, my tallest and best friend in the entire world, Mr. Chase Saltchase. How are you doing today?
00:00:48
Speaker
I'm doing great, Matt. Thanks for having me on the pod. I'm honored to be the second guest. I listened to Mr. Nave's pod, your first one that you did last week. I believe it had like five million views or something, so I'm happy to keep that train rolling here. Yeah, I think you're only a little bit off on the views. Last time I checked, we were at eight, but that number is going to keep climbing. That's close enough. Five million, eight. Close enough.
00:01:10
Speaker
That's a rounding error for us here on Afternoon Delights. All right, Chase. Now, why don't you tell the guests a little bit about yourself? Not all
Chase's Early Life and Ohio Memories
00:01:17
Speaker
the listeners know who you are. Tell us, how would you grow up? Yeah. I was actually born in Houston, Texas in a little town called Humble or as the locals would say, Humble. And I lived there for about two and a half years and then moved
00:01:31
Speaker
to great state of Ohio, Dublin, Ohio. We grew up not too far from each other, same neighborhood and everything. You and I share a lot of the same childhood memories of recess at Chapman, very competitive. We had a lot of athletes. Those were some of my best memories, just playing soccer, playing football, basketball.
00:01:49
Speaker
kickball really anything Chapman Elementary was a great time and I was into sports growing up I had an older sister she was into bands so we didn't really didn't really cross paths a ton we kind of just stayed out of each other's way and then I wouldn't when I was eight years old I had my parents had a baby girl so I got another sibling so I'm in between two girls so
00:02:08
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, growing up, childhood was great, parents were great, had a lot of friends, was always hanging out with people, always playing sports.
Family Dynamics and Kentucky Visits
00:02:15
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Especially when I was younger, we would go to Louisville, Kentucky pretty much every weekend. My parents would drive us up there to hang out with my cousins, three of them, they're older and really looked up to them and had a great time. It was a good life growing up for me.
00:02:27
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely was. Like you said, I mean, we've known each other for a very long time. We played on the same neighborhood soccer team. That's where we met, much like Jacob Knave, but a little bit earlier, we played a pre-kindergarten on the canons.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, we did. I see, I don't remember that at all. There's a lot of my childhood that I don't remember, and that's one of those things you tell me that we were great and I believe it, but I don't remember that at all if I'm being honest. Oh yeah, we played on the cannons, all right, another undefeated soccer team. Then in, I think, first grade, as we moved up the age group, we changed from the cannons to the fusion, and we went undefeated all fall and spring for two straight years, and then I went to the Wizards and went undefeated.
00:03:08
Speaker
I'm undefeated in youth soccer.
Youth Sports and Competitive Spirit
00:03:10
Speaker
You peaked young there with your athletic prowess. I do remember having the Fusion shirt from the good old D.Y.A. And yeah, but besides that, I think it all went downhill for me after that, as far as being on winning teams, because whether it was soccer, football, basketball, leading all the way up in the senior year of high school when we were actually good senior year. But before that, I think every team I was ever on, we lost. We were terrible.
00:03:37
Speaker
I was usually like the best player and I was okay. But yeah, I mean, I just I don't know what happened after that just went downhill, I guess. Hey, sometimes that's the price that you got to pay to be a winner. I know I think in sixth grade, I played on a basketball team that went 0-10 in the DYF. That's always fun. I remember I was pretty competitive as a kid and I would score like 40 points and we would still lose and I would go home and just cry and throw fit because I was just
00:04:01
Speaker
tired of losing all the time, but it's good memories. I remember always going over to your house and your house was the fun house, always a lot to do. So movies galore, any DVD you wanted, you had it.
Nostalgic Gaming Memories
00:04:14
Speaker
One of the big draws of going to your house is you always had all of the candy, all of the snacks, and it was just
00:04:20
Speaker
full display for us to tear into. Your house was always the fun house and a lot of great memories, especially when you got that pool. And I know you and Jacob talked about the pool basketball games when he came on and that was always a great time. So nothing but good memories at the Latimer household.
00:04:35
Speaker
Oh yeah, we had a lot of good times. A lot of pool basketball. Me and you specifically, we played a ton of Nintendo. A lot of Mario Kart, a lot of Super Smash Bros. I had a lot of video games. I mean, we were always playing two on one, two on two, Halo 2. Me, you, Colin, and whoever else we could get. At your house, you had the GameCube. I never had the GameCube. And I think that you probably the best Mario Kart double dash player of all time. You never had a GameCube? What a deprived child.
00:05:01
Speaker
Oh, I had you. I just go to your house. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, man. I mean, I would sit there and memorize every course on Mario Kart Double Dash and then just destroy everybody. If I didn't come in first by like a wide margin, I would be pissed. Like even if I won, but didn't win by what I thought was enough, that would upset me. But yeah, I mean, playing Halo 2, the split screen, when you didn't have all this live stuff, all this
00:05:24
Speaker
internet fiber base whatever and you had to actually play on two separate screens in the same household because you didn't want people to screen watch on one screen people could screen watch and see where you are yeah I mean that was that was good times you'd get 10 people in your house and you'd set up two screens and and go at it good times
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, the System Link days were legendary. Halo 2 is still my favorite game of all time. I don't think anything will ever beat it. It launched what live video games are today, in my opinion. But hey, we weren't only playing video games. All of our games are different board games, different wrist games. I mean, we go for days during the winter breaks. I'll still remember our games of risk. It should have taught me, but I'm still a little bit too nice when I play board games to just be ruthless.
00:06:07
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I remember our longest game of risk went for eight days and me, you and Colin going at it and you were just getting absolutely destroyed. And I think that you were going to get knocked out in the first 30 minutes. And I felt bad that you were going to get knocked out so early. So I made a forceful bunker and I gave you like two countries in Africa and I protected all of your borders from Colin. And then I.
00:06:32
Speaker
press them and me and Colin went to battle for like the next hour and then you slowly built up and then me being nice and not wanting you to just have to sit and watch us play for four hours cause an eight game. I mean, that was the thing with really any of the games that we played, we just didn't want to stop playing. We didn't want to stop hanging
00:06:50
Speaker
So we would just prolong the game if somebody was about to go out early we would just keep them in because yeah I mean I just I just wanted to hang out as long as possible and if that meant that I get to keep going over to Matt's house every day in the dead of winter when you're on winter break and there's nothing else to do I mean sign me up for that if we kept that game going forever I'd still be playing
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, me too. It's been a while since we've played risk. We need to run that back here pretty soon.
Adventures of a Traveling Therapist
00:07:17
Speaker
So tell the people, Chase, what have you been up to lately? Yeah, see, my wife and I, we got married in 2022 and we decided we were living, before we got married, we were living in Dublin, Ohio and we were, it was the dead of winter. This was, you know, 2021 going into 2022 and we were getting into the January and the February where it's
00:07:39
Speaker
Just life is miserable every day, you don't see the sun for 60 days and we were like, what are we doing here? Why are we sitting here in Ohio? So we never really talked about it but there was this thing called traveling physical therapist and we kind of started to talk about it and it was where Julie could, that's my wife's name Julie, she could go somewhere different every three months and I would just follow her and I asked my job if I could go remote
00:08:05
Speaker
Um, and for whatever reason they let me. And so we're like, yeah, let's just pull the trigger. And then like three weeks later we were in Arizona. So we packed all our stuff into her little Toyota Camry and drove across the country. Uh, went to Phoenix, Arizona in February, a beautiful time to be there and.
00:08:22
Speaker
It didn't know how long we were going to do it, didn't know how long we were going to travel for. It was just kind of, you know, we'll just go to Phoenix and then go from there because we went to Phoenix in February and then we had our wedding at the end of May. So we knew we had to be back for that. That was pretty much the perfect three month time span. So we actually drove back across the country like two or like a week before we got married or something. And once we got back, got married in Ohio, we wanted to keep doing it.
00:08:47
Speaker
almost two years later we were still doing it so we went from February 2022 till November 2023 and then came back to Ohio for the holidays and have been here ever since just kind of ready to settle down it was a great lifestyle we got to see the country got to explore so much but it's only sustainable for so long so and now we're here back in Columbus getting our life settled here and it's
00:09:12
Speaker
It's good to be back around friends and family as much as we miss the outdoors, as much as we miss exploring and seeing the country. It's good to be back with friends and family, so that's where we're at now. Yeah, and we're glad to have you back. Excited to see all the photos and everything. You guys got to go on a lot of good adventures. I mean, for you, Chase, and our guests out there listening, if you had to recommend a place to live, people out there to move to of all the places that you stayed, what would be your recommendation? Just a quick rundown.
00:09:39
Speaker
of where we stayed so we went to phoenix arizona first spent the winter there and then we spent the following summer in goreham new hampshire which is just a beautiful part of new hampshire at the base of the white mountain national forest tons of hiking galore and so after that summer we drove back across the country
00:09:58
Speaker
to Southern California to spend the winter there. Then after that, we drove a little bit farther north to Santa Cruz, California, a little bit below San Francisco there. Then we spent the nicer months in California there. Then the following summer, we went up to Bellingham, Washington and actually ended our stay in Las Vegas, Nevada before driving back to Columbus.
00:10:24
Speaker
Our favorite place and my favorite place was definitely Bellingham, Washington. Beautiful city, an hour north of Seattle, an hour, hour and a half north of Seattle, and then about an hour and a half south of Vancouver. So it's pretty close to Canada. It's about 20 minutes from the border there. So you can get to Canada quick, you can get to Seattle quick. There was a lot of islands that you could take a ferry to. I didn't know Washington had islands until we got there.
00:10:50
Speaker
That was great. And then just being there for the summer, hiking galore, just everybody is so outdoorsy, beautiful scenery. I mean, I just can't say enough good things about Bellingham, Washington. And if it was a little bit closer to family, if it wasn't a whole cross country flight, we would probably still be there. So that was our favorite place for sure.
00:11:11
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. I saw the photos that you guys were, were taken there and where you got to stay. And yeah, it looked like a really great place. I've always wanted to get up there during the fall and see the leaves change colors. So we might make a trip like that work here coming up next year. Yeah, definitely have to. Yeah. I mean, Washington is just, is just such a great place to live. It.
00:11:28
Speaker
It's very expensive though that that was another drawback beside being so far from family. I mean, there was a house on the market across the street from us where we were staying. And I think it was maybe 1200, 1400 square feet, not really all that nice. And it was like $950,000. So when I hear people complain about the housing prices in Columbus, I mean, it is high, but, um, it's really nothing compared to what it's like over there on the West coast, but you're paying for the scenery.
00:11:56
Speaker
You're paying for the clean air, just outdoor lifestyle. So there's trade-offs there. Hey, every place has, it's good and it's bad. All right.
U.S. National Parks History
00:12:05
Speaker
Let's, uh, let's roll into our next segment of the week. We got our good news of the week. I have a short little story, nothing as detailed as last week. Unfortunately, didn't have all the time to dig into it, but I did see in the news this week that they have developed a new type of blood test now that can detect early stages of cancer up to 18 different types.
00:12:24
Speaker
It's 93% successful in men and 85% successful in women. So right now they can detect types of cancer from blood tests already, but it's usually only about one at a time. So the fact that they can get 18 early stages, stage one cancer is detected from this blood test. That could be a big move in medicine, helps save a lot of lives. So glad to see those things getting advanced.
00:12:44
Speaker
You got any good news for us this week? Yeah. Um, one of the top stores I saw for good news was, uh, I'll read you the headline here. It says Vikings, Alexander, Matt, and just Madison going above and beyond to deliver an impact in his community. And that's about all the information I have for you there, because I would have had this subscribe to Fox news to read the full article. But I like that good news because I like it. Uh, when you hear about, you hear, you hear this a lot about, uh, sports figures getting out in the community and.
00:13:14
Speaker
and doing good work and making a positive impact. And I just think that's great because obviously they got a lot of money. They got a lot of free time on their hand. They don't have to really be out there investing in the community, but I mean, I think it's always great to give back, especially for them. I mean, when they could get traded at the drop of the hat or dropped or whatever, and they're still out there investing in the community when they don't know how long they're going to be there. I think that's always good news and that makes me a little more hopeful for humanity.
00:13:42
Speaker
Well, that's good. I'm glad that that brought a smile to your day. It is always good when people with a little bit extra can give back to people that don't have as much. So good for Alexander Madison. All right, Chase, are you ready for our next segment? We are, uh, we're going to change the fun tidbits. It's now been renamed. It's going to be called afternoon delights place at the table. And this is a chance for everybody out there listening and all you people to take what you learn on afternoon delights and share it at the dinner table.
00:14:06
Speaker
You can pass it off as your own, pass it off as whatever. When the conversation gets stale, bring up some interesting stories, some interesting facts. You know, maybe even if they're not a hundred percent true, you just got to sell it. All right, Chase. Now you're a big lover of the national parks. Oh yeah. I love them.
00:14:21
Speaker
Now, do you know how the national parks came about it? All right. This is the history of the national parks in the United States. It all started with a motto manifest destiny. The desire for Americans to expand their freedom West as thousands of settlers poured out West along the Oregon trail in search of greener pastures and for gold.
00:14:43
Speaker
This led to the development of more towns, more railroads, and more industries across the newly settled lands. But not everyone was too keen on these developments. One of those people credited with kind of starting the craze of a national park possibly was painter George Catlin.
00:15:00
Speaker
You can be credited with this idea. He spent many years during the 1830s observing the Great Plains and the lives of the Native Americans, making paintings of the pristine lands, witnessing the destruction, the overhunting of buffaloes. And he wrote, by some great protecting policy of government in a magnificent park, a nation's park containing man and beast and all the wildness and freshness of their nature's beauty.
00:15:23
Speaker
So he started to push forward. Well, it would be some time before any action really took place. But as California settled and became a new state, they sought to protect the destruction of the Yosemite Valley. So in 1864, California Senator John Kness wrote an act for the state of California to be able to adopt the Valley and have it transferred as part of the state so that it could be used to preserve the land for the benefit of mankind.
00:15:49
Speaker
And that act was signed by president Abraham Lincoln on June 30th, 1864. And then eight years later on March 1st, 1872, president Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Act, creating the first national park, not just in the United States, but also in the world. Now, as a few years went by Mr. Rough Rider, president Teddy Roosevelt, he wanted to protect the natural beauty of this country. And he signed in the
00:16:17
Speaker
Antiquities Act in 1906, and that allowed the president to declare public lands, historic landmarks, prehistoric structures, everything that they would become public lands of the United States, and they would be considered national monuments. And the first national monument was Devil's Tower in Wyoming, which is a 600 foot high tower of rock visible from over a hundred miles.
00:16:39
Speaker
Now on August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson finally created the National Parks Service, which was used to oversee the preservation and maintenance of the park. And then in 1933, President FDR signed an executive order
00:16:56
Speaker
6166 that consolidated all of the national parks, national monuments, military parks, national cemeteries, national memorials under the umbrella of the National Park Service so that they could all be controlled and operated by the same group. And right now
00:17:11
Speaker
The National Park Service currently oversees 425 parks, 63 of which are national parks. The national parks are visited by more than 300 million guests a year in New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia is the newest established national park, which was established in 2020. It used to be a national river. And that's how we got the national park system. I love it. Yeah. I'm a big proponent of getting out there and visiting the parks.
00:17:37
Speaker
Julie and I have been to 28 and 23 of those were in the time that we were traveling. Not only did we stay in those states that I mentioned, but we also took trips to Hawaii, Alaska, Montana, Utah, just to name a couple. And really that whole time that we were traveling, we just wanted to get out and hike and see the country and do it while we're young. So I can't recommend enough to everybody. Take trips, go out there, see the parks, you'll just be blown away by
00:18:05
Speaker
the beauty. So thank you for that little history lesson there, Mr. Vladimir. Hey, no problem. Do you have any conversations at the table that you would like? I do. Yeah. I mean, just on the topic of national parks, I mean, learning about the history is great, but then there's also just a ton of great facts that you can look up. You know, if you just Google facts about national parks, there's plenty of them there. And I think you'll be blown away about, you know, a lot of them just learning about the history of this nation as far as
00:18:31
Speaker
that nature goes. So yeah, just take a Google at those, discuss those with your family, you know, and just learn more about the beautiful, the beautiful country that we live in.
Favorite National Parks Draft
00:18:41
Speaker
I agree. Now, Chase, let's get into the meat of this. Now, you love hiking. You love national parks. It's on my bucket list to see every national park other than some of the ones in Alaska that are dang near impossible to get to if they get left off the list. But I want to see all of them. So what better way to do this episode than to draft some national parks? So we're going to pick, we're each going to pick our five favorite national parks.
00:19:04
Speaker
If I draft one, you can't take it. If you draft one, I can't take it. Then we'll let the guests decide who built the better national parks. You defend why you picked what you picked. I let you decide you chose that you want to pick second. So I will go first, then you will go twice. We'll alternate in snake order until we both have five. All right. You ready to get this underway? I am, yes. And I do want to say I am only going to draft
00:19:27
Speaker
the ones that I have been to. I'm not going to speak on ones that I have not been to yet. So those are my ground rules there. I don't know how you're going to play this game, but that's how I'm going to play. I got a whole mix. Here we go.
00:19:40
Speaker
All right, well, if you're going to pick in a national parks draft and you have the first pick overall, there's only one pick that you can make. And that's the first ever national park. That's Yellowstone National Park is my first pick. Not only is it the first national park in the world, it also spreads over 2 million acres. It's got mountains. It has valleys. It has diverse animal life and plant life, but it is also home to more hot springs and geysers than any place else on planet earth. And if that's not enough, Yellowstone itself is
00:20:30
Speaker
also one of the
00:20:40
Speaker
on most people. Yeah, I like that pic, Matt. That was one that I had on my list too. We took a trip there actually before we started traveling and I can't recommend it enough. Just so many cool things to see there. Just make sure you stay away from the bison. See a lot of people on the news getting too close. So here for my first pick here, I am going to draft Yosemite. Like when you talk about national parks, you think of Yellowstone, you also think of Yosemite. We spent three or four days there and
00:21:10
Speaker
Actually, when we were there last year, it was the previous winter they had. So we went, let's see, we went in June or July, I think. And the previous winter, they had had the most snowfall that they've ever recorded there. And all the waterfalls there get their water from the snowfall. And there are just so many waterfalls. I think Yosemite has
00:21:32
Speaker
five of the tallest waterfalls in the world or something. And the water was just roaring when we were there. So just a beautiful place, you know, there's just waterfalls galore, there's rock features galore, just a very beautiful place.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great pick, Yosemite. It also has the famousness with it, the popularity from all the different shows. For rock climbing, it's got El Cap, it's got the Half Dome, Free Solo was shot there, all that kind of stuff. So that's a great pick. All right, what's your second pick? Yeah, my second one. I'm going to go with one that's maybe a little bit lesser known, and that's Capitol Reef in Utah.
00:22:09
Speaker
So there are five national parks in Utah. We took an 11 day trip and did a mall, then a few days in each park and Capitol Reef. I mean, all of them in Utah are just absolutely beautiful, but there's so many beautiful rock structures, colors. They call it Capitol Reef because they have this, one of the rock structures looks like the US Capitol. But then it's also kind of got this divide between the park where it's.
00:22:34
Speaker
Kind of like this mossy green that kind of signals the end of the park there. And it looks kind of like a reef, even though you're in there amongst all the rocks. And it's not, like I said, not a very popular park. So you get in there and you're not going to deal with a bunch of crowds, but there's a ton of good hiking trails there. So that's going to be my second pick.
00:22:56
Speaker
Nice, that's a good pick. Yeah, I haven't been to Capitol Reef, but everything in Utah is pretty beautiful. Now, my second pick is a park that I've been to, and I'm gonna take Glacier National Park in Montana. I mean, I think Glacier has been getting more popular lately, but I first visited this park when I was in fourth grade and we were out to see family. My great uncle Art, my great aunt Judy, just two great people. They really made it a wonderful trip. It's a trip that I still remember to this day.
00:23:22
Speaker
when we were out there you know global warming hadn't taken as big of an effect and the glacier itself out there was still way bigger it was the first time that I had ever seen snow outside of the winter we went in July I'm throwing snowballs on top of a mountain so that was a pretty great time we have a
00:23:39
Speaker
One of our more popular Christmas cards came from this trip with all of us standing and I mean a mountain goat probably 20 feet away right in the photo. I don't think I've ever seen clearer water than what I saw in the lakes at Glacier Park and around the mountain. There isn't really much else to do in Montana, so when you go there you come to this park. It's kind of one of the reasons that it's overlooked because it's the only thing to do, but I don't know anybody that's gone to Glacier and
00:24:02
Speaker
not been absolutely yeah second to that and the nice thing about it is there's a there's a few different entrances to that park and there's a lot of places to stay right by the entrances you know just because it is becoming pretty popular they've you know definitely built up places to stay there but yeah i mean we did one hike where we were looking down at a big glacier and then we hike directly to the great the glacier the next day and we got to touch
00:24:26
Speaker
Got to touch the glacier and on our way there, there were these bunch of pools of red water. It looked like there was just blood in the water. So I'm not sure what was going on there, but that was pretty cool to look at. So that's a good pick there. I like that one. Thank you. My third pick is going to be Rocky Mountain National Park.
00:24:45
Speaker
You know, I spent about seven, eight months living in Colorado. I hiked a lot of different trails in the Rockies and outside of maybe one or two trails, there is just nothing else in that state or that mountain range that really compares to what you can get in Rocky Mountain National Park.
00:25:01
Speaker
I mean, it's still some of the craziest mountain ranges that I've seen. I remember driving from here all the way out to Colorado by myself, looking at these mountains for the first time and just complete all, driving through them in a snowstorm that was just rip roaring, absolutely crazy. I mean, again, it's more pristine water. It's probably one of the most, I think it's one of the most visited parks in the entire country.
00:25:23
Speaker
It has super easy access to get to the park. It's only like a two-hour drive from Denver. You can stay in Granby on the lake just outside of it or you can stay up in Estes Park just a little bit. More expensive but a nicer spot. You get to see all the different elk and you can really get high up in elevation. You can drive any of the height. You can drive up to like 12,700 feet and then start your hike.
00:25:46
Speaker
So you know, Colorado is the land of 14ers. So that's the easiest way to really get up there high. But if you're not used to it, definitely bring some oxygen. But that's why I'm taking Rocky Mountain. I like that. Yeah, that's ironic because that's one of the ones that we haven't been to. And we're actually planning a trip to go later this year, probably in September, maybe end of December, end of September, early October. So yeah, I'm excited to see that.
00:26:09
Speaker
All right, Chase, why don't you give me your third pick? My third pick here. I'm going to go with another one that's lesser known, but that we spent a lot of time around when we were in Washington, and that's going to be North Cascades National Park. I think it's one of the least visited national parks in the country. A lot of people know about Reneer. A lot of people know about Olympic.
00:26:31
Speaker
But the third one in Washington that doesn't really get a lot of looks is the North Cascades. And I think that's because it's just a little harder to get to. And also the hiking season is very short there just because of the amount of snow they get virtually all year. There's actually not a ton of trails in the North Cascade, but surrounding it is a national forest called the Mount Baker Snowqualmie National Forest.
00:26:55
Speaker
And the hikes there are, you know, it's right around it. So if you're there, you're pretty much in the North Cascades. And, you know, that was only an hour and a half from us when we were in Washington. So we did many hikes in that area and just absolutely, absolutely beautiful there. Like you were saying, the crystal clear water and glacier, same towards the Cascades. So that's going to be my third pick.
00:27:19
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't heard anything bad about North Cascades. It definitely looks beautiful. I think it's the least visited national park in the lower 48. Yeah, that would make sense. I think that the some in Alaska up there are the only ones that are less. But all right, what's pick number four? Pick number four. I'm actually going to stay in Washington for this one and go with Mount Rainier. So we went to the Cascades, we went to Olympic, and we went to Rainier. And Mount Rainier is just very awe-inspiring. So it's just
00:27:48
Speaker
a giant mountain in the middle of all the other mountains and it's kind of, it's kind of on its own, but it's, so it's actually a, it's an active volcano and it's actually a glacier. So it's where all these glaciers just kind of diverge into the rock. And it's also an active volcano and it's, it's just beautiful. Um, so we hike all around that, got to see it from all different angles, can see Reneer from Seattle and that part just had a lot of, a lot of great trails. So we really enjoyed that one as well.
00:28:17
Speaker
They'll have, I've never been to Seattle, so that one's on the list for sure. I'd like to try and get three or four in one go if possible, but definitely on the list. But you sold me on this hole. Let's, let's take some that we've been to chase. So I'm actually dropping down my list. I'm going to take this one before you get a chance.
00:28:33
Speaker
And I'm going to take Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. Now for Arches, maybe it's not up there on some other people's lists, especially you got Zion and Bryce Canyon there, which Zion was actually higher on my list than Arches. But while I was living alone in Colorado by myself, pretty much.
00:28:50
Speaker
All the time, just working and then coming home and playing Fortnite and not having anybody out there. You came out to Utah with your family for a vacation and you guys graciously let me crash your vacation. So I drove four hours to meet my best friend in Moab, Utah. We did a lot of fun stuff there. We got to ride in that Humvee tour. We did all the hikes and it was 104 degrees outside and you went swimming in that little swimming hole with everybody else and jumping off the rock.
00:29:19
Speaker
still remember all those fond times and then for arches itself is obviously it's one of the most unique parks out there in the country because of how windy it is and all the rocks it's it's really eroded some of the formation so you're not gonna see many other places that have arches those natural archways created by wind like at arches national park and waking up early you know 4 or 5 a.m 6 a.m getting out there beating the heat and
00:29:44
Speaker
doing a hike out to delicate arch to catch the sunrise is probably one of the most beautiful sunrises that you can see in the entire country. So I'm taking arches with my fourth pick thousand percent. I really enjoyed when we got to go and you met us out there. That was that was a ton of fun. And that was one of the first national parks that I had ever been to. And then Julie and I got a chance this past fall to go again on our Utah trip. And yeah, I mean, it's it's really cool. There are hundreds of arches within the park.
00:30:13
Speaker
there might even be thousands, I forget the exact number. But you can just spend all day exploring, finding different arches, different sizes, different shapes. Great pick there. And then with my final pick of this draft, you know, I'm torn between two here. One I've been to more often, and I think is would almost go remiss to not be on the list, but it's not the most pretty, but I'm going to take another one that I think is
00:30:36
Speaker
Probably the prettiest on the entire East coast. I'm going with Acadia National Park. This is a, it's a personal favorite for me. We took a vacation up there. You know, it's in the high Northeast. It's on the Atlantic ocean. It has some really great views. It's probably the best views in all the Northeast, except for maybe what you get on Mount Washington.
00:30:55
Speaker
You go on the summer, you're going to have great weather. You can stay in Bar Harbor, Maine, which is just a really cute kind of quaint town. You can go out and do lobster boat fishing and you can do whale watching tours, which you can't really do in a lot of other places. And, um, even if you get out there in the fall, drive up Thunder Canyon and you can really see the leaves changing color. It's probably one of the best places in the country to go and see something like that. It's nestled away. It's also one that's not too popular. So it's really not packed. Yeah. Just like Acadia.
00:31:21
Speaker
It also has more moose than people in the state of Maine, so you might be able to see a live moose walking around. Good times there. Great pick. Yeah, I love it, Katie, and that was on my list. You stole that one from me. There's not a whole lot of parks on the east coast here. Most of them are out west, and the east coast mountains
00:31:41
Speaker
They can't really contend with the West Coast mountains, but Acadia is beautiful in its own right and definitely one of those places everybody should visit. Alright Chase, what is your final draft pick? Yeah, I'm torn here. I'm torn on a lot of them. It's hard because it's hard to pick
00:31:59
Speaker
top, top national parks because they're all just so different and beautiful on their own. But for my last pick here, I'm going to give a shout out to a lesser known park, one that most people probably haven't heard of, but is really cool. And that's going to be Great Basin in Nevada. So Great Basin is
00:32:19
Speaker
in northern Nevada in the desert, and really the only place to stay is a little town called Baker, Nevada, and the population is about 34 people, but they have a nice general store there. They have a sign for a school. It's like a 1700 school house. I don't know how many kids live in that population of 34 people, but it was a very welcoming town. We stayed in
00:32:44
Speaker
There was this Mexican food truck and the guy had built, he had just built some shacks basically and redid them. They were really nice and that's where we stayed and drove into Great Basin. It's way up there elevation-wise in the desert. We went.
00:32:59
Speaker
towards the end of October and it was about 30 degrees just because of how high up it is there and it was okay though because the sun was shining so I was most of the time in shorts and a t-shirt and 30 degrees but the sun is just so hot you know out there
00:33:18
Speaker
and west especially you know when you're in the desert. So a very cool place to visit a lot of great hiking trails. They have bristlecone pine trees which are actually some of the world's oldest trees and the actual oldest tree in the world is a bristlecone pine tree there in Great Basin. So that was really cool to see those. We also did a cave tour there. They have a layman cave there and I guess during prohibition
00:33:43
Speaker
They would actually have parties down there in the cave. They would have like a homecoming there. They would just go down in the cave and drink beer. So that was a really cool place to visit and definitely a great place to check out if you're ever in Nevada for other reasons.
00:33:58
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. Great basins on my list because I want to see all of them, but I didn't definitely didn't know all that pretty cool that they have the oldest tree in the world. Might have to bump that one up a couple of notches for sure. That's a solid list. Now we got a couple other honorable mentions, um, stuff that I actually had earlier on my list until you convinced me to take the stuff that I had been to, but mentioned Zion is probably the prettiest park in all of Utah.
00:34:19
Speaker
Uh, my number four on the list was Grand Canyon National Park. Reason being is, you know, grand is in the name made by the mighty Colorado because of how fast the Colorado runs and the type of soil and dirt that and like rock formations that is persistent there.
00:34:34
Speaker
that it can only be made that way in a couple places. So like the Mississippi River is powerful enough that it could have created a second Grand Canyon, but because of like the elevation and when you hit certain levels of like earth, it can never get deep enough to make a Grand Canyon. Then there's other places in the world has the right type of dirt, but it doesn't have a strong enough river. So Grand Canyon is truly like a one of one place. That one definitely high up there on the list. That's an honor we'll mention.
00:34:59
Speaker
Smoky Mountain National Park is another one here, obviously in Tennessee. Maybe not the prettiest views, but it does have great hiking trails and it is the most visited national park in the entire country. It actually gets about three times the amount of visitors every year compared to every other national park. Every other national park, I think the second most visited is about four and a half to five million a year and Smoky Mountain National Park is pushing 12 to 13 million people a year.
00:35:23
Speaker
So definitely on the list. And then my last honorable mention that I'll do is Redwoods National Park is just a personal must-see for me. That's number one on my bucket list. I want to see the Redwoods before they go. You got any honorable mentions? I do, yeah. So just to finish the rest out in Utah, Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands, I just can't really describe the scenery there, the rock formations, the canyons. I mean, you should, if you haven't seen it, just look it up. Google it. And Bryce Canyon, particularly at most of the
00:35:52
Speaker
park is above 8,000 feet of elevation and these things called hoodoos form. Um, just look up hoodoos and be amazed there. Um, so I'll throw those two in there. Um, and then I'll just do, do a quick, another honorable mention. Um, if you're going to go to Yellowstone might as well make the stop and grant Teton out there in Wyoming as well and see the Tetons there. So yeah, that that's just the last one I'll throw in there, but I could sit here all day and talk about the beauty of
00:36:18
Speaker
of all of them. Oh yeah, definitely. You could do 10 hours on it, but hey, if you live in Ohio, take a trip up to Cuyahoga National Park.
00:36:25
Speaker
Not sure. I guess I just felt bad for Ohio. It's because, you know, the river caught on fire all those years ago because of the car companies pumping all the sludge into Lake Erie and stuff. So after years and years and years of trying to revitalize the river and make it habitable for animals and not be a piece of crap, they decided to like award it a national park status. That way it has to be like, re-maintained to that level. It can't fall back to being crap. That makes sense.
00:36:52
Speaker
All right, Chase. Now I had some requests from some listeners here. They, they are avid book lover, you know, arguably the, the most important listener of, of everybody requested this more important than anybody else that listens to this podcast. Who's that? We won't name names, but it's my wife Brianna. Oh, okay. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So she said that she wanted books recommended so that she could just absorb all of them. All right. She's a little bookworm. She wants to read everything. So we're going to start the afternoon delights book club.
00:37:22
Speaker
I love it. So why don't you tell me, give me your favorite book or series, whatever comes to your mind that you'd recommend for people to read. Well, um, one that I'm going to recommend is one that I'm reading through now. And I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna recommend this one because I think Brianna would enjoy it. I think anybody would enjoy it. It's called Demon Copperhead and it's by Barbara King Solver. I heard it talked about on some of the podcasts that I listened to. She actually came on as a guest.
00:37:48
Speaker
on one of my favorite podcasts. And this book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2022. And it's about a kid growing up in Appalachia and just the struggles that he goes through. Definitely, I'm sure, relatable to a lot of the people that grow up in that area and more rural Appalachia and all of the struggles of that region. And it's just beautifully written. Can't recommend it enough.
00:38:16
Speaker
So I'm going to go with, uh, with demon Copperhead. All right. That's a good recommendation. Everybody out there. Uh, if you have time, go read demon Copperhead and then you can talk about it with chase. If you, if you want to reach out to him and chase, I mean that wraps up about what we had on the pod. So thank you for coming out and, you know, bringing a little pep to people's day, help push through the week. Thanks for having me, Matt.
00:38:37
Speaker
All right. Thank you out there to everybody listening. We appreciate you. Hopefully this cheered you up a bit, helped you out on this Wednesday to push for that Saturday. You know, we're living for the weekend. Everybody's working for the weekend. Anybody can be a guest on afternoon delights. So if you have some interesting things that you want to talk about, just get in contact with me, send them my way. We'll get you on the pod. We'll do some drafts. We'll discuss some things, but I'm your host, Matt Latimer, and I'm just reminding you to keep on smiling.
00:39:05
Speaker
I'll be your Saint goodnight. I hate to go and live this pretty side. So long, farewell, I'll be your Saint Andrew. I do, I do, to your Andrew Andrew.