Welcome to GenX Adulting and today we have Wes from Hiking with Hope with us. Welcome Wes. We're happy to have you here. Our first question is always, what year were you born? 1967. Okay, so you are Gen X. Now, that 67 wasn't the summer of love, right? Was that 69 was the summer of love? can't remember. 69, yeah. But 67 was the beginning of the whole hippie movement and all that. So you were born during the beginning of all that, the civil rights movement and all the stuff that was going on. yeah, I remember my older siblings out doing their protesting and you know, the bell bottom jeans and the yeah, the whole 60s thing and the 70s vibe and. yeah, yeah, now where were you born? I was born in Springfield, Oregon. Yeah. Yeah. And were your parents from that area? Like, did your family, I know for me, my great grandmother's dad brought them all to Oregon. Did your family go back pretty far? All originally from Oregon, believe it or not. My mom went to school at Lowell High School in Lowell, Oregon. My dad went to school in, I think it was Springfield. Yeah, so all my ancestry go back to really grassroots of being in Oregon kind of. That's awesome. Do you know how they met? don't actually. That's one thing I don't know. They got married in Eugene. Right when my dad was getting ready to take off to go into the military. And then I've got seven siblings. my step, he's my stepdad who raised me from the time I was two. Him and my mom had a daughter together. He's my half sister. And now they're both passed away. So it's just me and a couple of siblings still left out lingering around and Okay, so there's seven. So when they got married, did – there – okay, so it was blended. okay. Blended. Okay, so were you the only one that was there like from them? No, my sister was. Okay so, oh, so did your mom bring you? Me and my other two siblings came in with him, with my stepdad and his three kids. And then they had my sister Sandy after they got married and we were all together and all that. Okay, how did the blending go? Was it a pretty smooth process? It was, now that I look back on it because Dad brought in three boys and then there was me and Brat so there was five boys, two girls. Mmm. That's a rowdy house. we lived out on 10 acres out in the middle of nowhere in Marcola Oregon. So it was all dirt bikes and, you know, getting dirty and raising cattle and horses and livestock. So what did he do? He actually was a millwright for Weyerhaeuser for like almost 40 years. wow. A mill, right? What is that? Basically, it's uh in a roundabout way, it's like a mechanic for a mill. So they're running around fixing things, making sure everything's operating correctly. ah And then closer to the end of his career, he ended up uh as one of the operational guys for Weyerhaeuser Okay, so he worked for Weyerhaeuser pretty much his whole career. whole career from 18 on. And was your mom a stay-at-home mom? Without that many kids, I would think so. yeah, she, you know, back then it was easier for, for moms to stay home, uh, and raise six, seven kids, you know, on a one income household. Uh, and then as we started getting older and times started changing, we started getting into the late seventies, early eighties, moms started going back to work and she would do part-time work and things like that. Were most of you kind of in school at that point when she went back? Okay. So you said that you guys had 10 acres? Yeah. So what was, were you farming or was it livestock? how did you use all that land? Primarily for livestock. We came in cleared a lot of it. I had a lot of old oak and a lot of dug for a lot of old timber. So we cut that down. We use some of that. built a I want to say it's a 4000 square foot home on the property using some of the timber off of the property. Yeah. And then what? I'm sorry. Did you help? Did you guys help build the home? yeah, 12 years old we were lugging lumber and yeah, in fact I cut two fingers in my left hand and my thumb I almost cut off at 13 using a chop saw, you know. Wow, that is really cool. Now with the livestock, did you guys sell it or? A lot of it was, uh yeah, we'd raise and sell like small livestock, goats, pigs, know, things like that, rabbits. As I got older and I started spending more time with what I call my other family or other set of parents, not related, but spend a lot of time with them. ah We ended up, I ended up living with them for the last couple of years of high school because they ran a livestock auction. Mmm. in the back pushing the cattle, horses, uh cattle, pigs, anything you can imagine, into the cell ring so that they could auction it off. And then we also uh trained horses. So I spent a lot of my younger childhood up through my 20s training horses and livestock and running livestock through the cell barn and things like that. oh transporting livestock for people from one side of the mountain to the other, hauling hay all over the dang state, cussing the whole way, and wishing you could do something else, and it sucked ass. So, was there ever a time where you got attached to an animal that you had to sell? Not really, I don't think so because in that business you get so unattached, it's an animal, you know what I mean? You always have your favorites, but ah no, not really. I've always been an outdoors type of person. ah So they kind of go hand in hand. We did a lot of horseback riding when I was a kid. We'd go up into the Sisters Wilderness area for two or three weeks at a time on horseback. ah and things like that. you you pick your favorite horse, so to speak, and you'd also jump on whatever was available to you. Did you guys have a lot of dogs? Yeah, we always had two, three, four dogs running around, a lot of healers. Yeah, I was going to say, did you have dogs like a healer that would help you with the livestock? working dog? Yeah. In fact, my brothers and stuff still run. They're part of the Oregon and Lane County Livestock Association and they run thousands ahead of cattle out of Cottage Grove. It's a big, it's a pretty big deal. uh They run and ship beef all over the country and Idaho. Oregon, California. a huge agricultural area, right? Both livestock and hay. I know there's seed companies there, territorial seeds, think in Eugene, I think, right? Or some junction city maybe. the cannabis industry up here is just like crazy. Well, yeah, I was reading the thing, an article a couple months ago, and they're saying that Oregon throws away and burns more marijuana than any other state in the country because of the overstock of, you know, of product. Yeah, I was just like, wow, I I had no idea, you know. Wow, that's a trip. Are you still close with all your siblings? Yeah, yeah. Are they all in Oregon? Yep, everybody's in Oregon, kind of spread out a little bit, you know, between Portland and Eugene and. That's very cool though. That's awesome. So during elementary school and junior high, I don't know if you called it junior high or middle school. Okay. Were you involved, was it mainly the stuff you were doing on your property or were you involved in any extracurriculars like sports or any clubs or anything or was it mainly that outdoorsy stuff? oh If I wasn't playing football or basketball during the seasons, was yeah working at home. Yeah. like pretty much would you have to get up early and help at home before you're leaving for school? yeah, you get up in the morning, feed, break ice, know, so livestock have water, that kind of stuff. So you usually get up about 4.35 o'clock, oh same time as my dad. If he wasn't working at Weyerhaeuser he was working out in the woods, falling timber. So he'd get up at 3.34 o'clock in the morning. We'd get up, take care of the livestock, run in the house, eat breakfast, and out the door we'd go. Wow, so what time were you going to bed? Was it an early to bed household? gosh, no, not with all the drama. And then as time went on, we ended up opening up a feed store up in Creswell, running a feed store and livestock store there. So yeah, there was never downtime, so to speak. Because even with the feed store, we were hauling, you know, five and 10 tons of hay from Eastern Oregon and back over to sell through the store. So if you weren't hauling hay and you were doing vaccinations for somebody, you were running out to their ranch to help out, you're always busy. So you were just grinding right from the start. And a feed store is really a central part of the community too, right? oh there's less than 3,000 people there. ah So yeah, it was actually connected to the post office. So people would come to the post office, hit the feed store, know, and the Dairy Queen across the street. Now did your sisters help too or was it mainly the guys? no, they helped too, yeah. They're all ropers and know, they barrel race and... I was the black sheep. I was the one that didn't stay in the farming industry. kind of sprawled my wings out when I went in the military. And then I remember coming back, was, I don't know, early 23, 24. No direction, was doing construction work, you know, for local construction guys. Winter came, there was no work. I answered to add in the local paper, no experience. Come and work in a nice cozy office. what's this about? You know, I'd never done office work. So I went down, ah did my interview, and the lady was like, yeah, we're, are what you call a collection agency. And I'm like, okay, still didn't really know what it was, you know, I'm clueless. So she leaves for about five, 10 minutes and then comes back in the office in the room. and hands me $5,000 in medical bills. Oh man. says, yeah, we want to go ahead and give you an offer. You can come to work for us. And we will take a percentage out of each of your check to pay back the debt you owe. So wait, so they hired you and basically we're saying we'll front you money and then as you collect that will be No, I owed $5,000 in medical bills that they were going to collect from me. from you. Oh. Personally. Right. And so they said, well, you owe us $5,000 for these medical bills. We'll hire you, train you how to be a bill collector, but we're going to take a portion of your paycheck until this is paid back. How did they know that you owed? No, no, they settled him up with somebody else's medical bills, but they said, here's, you owe us five grand. I assume the medical bills should have exceeded 5k, right? Maybe they were 10k. They wanted five. So then you could, whatever you made over five was yours to keep, but you had to pay them 5k. Well, yeah, was still my personal debt. Did I? Right. It was my personal debt. Well, because the hospital assigned that debt to the collection agency to collect, I happened to answer and add. show up in their office. So obviously what they do is anybody that shows up for an interview, they would run them through their system and they went, hey, tag. Hey, we got someone that owes us money. Let's offer them a time. No. like, that sounds like entrapment. uh though is now that I look back at that whole situation, that's where my uh career in finance began. If it wasn't for that... situation, God putting me in that place at that particular time. ah I went from that to owning mortgage companies, building multi-million dollar companies for investors, managing $50 million accounts receivables. ah I would have never learned all this stuff if I wouldn't have walked into that collection agency that day clueless, you know. uh work for them? like four five years or something and then I ended up staying I worked in finance for 35 So all my siblings who are still running cattle, you know punching cattle and doing that stuff, you know, they're all doing good They they've made it work ah But I see the difference in. Physical movement abilities, you know, I'm 58 Great shape really don't have any medical conditions. I'm a type 2 diabetic, but I control that with diet and exercise All my siblings are overweight a Lot of medical issues. They're not out exercising. They're sitting behind a desk all day my older brother Scott who uh Pretty much runs the family business in a sense. He's behind the desk all day. He's not out punching the cattle. He's got people doing that for him and you know. So yeah, it was definitely. And then I went to Arizona and got lost for. I don't know. I kind of got estranged from the family because I left the state, went to Arizona. Got involved in this banking and accounting thing. And got so enthralled with it, next thing I knew, 15 years had passed by and it seemed like it was a week. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, life definitely, the older you get feels like that, that's for sure. When you were, because you mentioned you went into the military when you got into high school, did you know you were going to go into the military or was college ever discussed in your family as an option? I had looked at college a little bit, but I actually had gotten into some trouble when I was 17. Nothing major, you know, I was running the streets, smoking dope, not breaking any major laws or anything, got kept on getting hauled into court for truancy and things like that. So the judge gave me an ultimatum. Well, you can go to six months in juvie where you can enlist in the military. Mmm. My mom said, we're going to the recruiter's office as soon as we leave here, so. Now, you said you lived with another family during the last couple of years of high school. Were you living with that family when all this was going on? Okay. But your mom came. Yeah, my mom, my birth mother had passed away in 20... 16, something like that. But when I was coming through the last couple of years of high school and all that, I moved to Creswell and lived with a police officer and his wife for a year. That was part of the keeping me out of juvie thing and keeping me from getting locked up. So the court said, well, you're going to live with this cop for a year. And if you can get through their program. then great, you know, you'll be fine. Well, I went through the program. It was good experience, no issues there. And then then it was like, what are we going to do with this, you know, kids, 16, 15, 16 years old. So they put me they put an ad in the local paper like like a like you would a pet. And they put it in a local small podunk town paper. And. This couple, Tom and Mary Ann Potter, answered the ad. And within a week, I was moving in with them. Now, is that the cop? No, this was before or after the cop. So I lived with the cop first and then. and was that court ordered living with the cop? Was he a friend of the family or was he a total stranger? No, but they all became best friends. Okay, so is this somebody was that something he volunteered to do like with the court system as he would take in kids who like need a little more guidance? I was the first kid to go into this program with the state. So my birth mother at this time was raging alcoholic. You know, she was lost and uh all the siblings kind of had moved out and everybody was off doing their thing. And oh so the state put me in. It was a new program that they were trying out. And the only way you could get into this program through the state, kind like a foster care type of system, is you have to be incarcerated in what they call McLaren. This was years ago. You've heard of McLaren, right? It was like, I wouldn't say a full on prison, but a prison type of, for juvies, juvenile, up to 21, I think. if I remember correctly. So they were like, okay, we're gonna put you in prison. That's how they put it to me. But you're gonna be there for two weeks. You have to be there for two weeks to get into this program. So I was their test dummy. First kid to ever get into this program through Looking God. how old were you then when you went into McLaren? 13, 14. Yeah. high, freshman year in high school. Yeah. So, basically what happened was I got caught up in the system, the juvenile system. And mom just kind of washed her hands. They were really bad alcoholics. ended up, dad left the bar or left the Weyerhaeuser or they opened up a bar. That became the life, you ah After all the kids were, almost all the kids were in adulthood at this point, except for me and my sister. I was going to say, were you second to youngest? Okay. And then how much spacing is there between you and your youngest sister? I think we're four years apart. Yeah. Yep, yep. everyone else is left and mom and dad are moving on with their lives starting this now they're in the bar scene and you guys are kind of very Gen X. You're very out there surviving on your own. No one's watching. yeah, we didn't have people at home when we came home from school, you And we lived out in the middle of nowhere. We lived out, our closest neighbor was probably three miles away. Yes, it's not like you had neighbors that if so you're coming home from school as many Gen Xers did totally on your own, fending for yourself, figuring out everything. But you didn't even have neighbors around you that if there was something you needed, they're far away. So you and your sister were very much on your own. Oh yeah, I I spent a lot of time out in the woods because we lived up on near a Weyerhaeuser or uh property. BLM land and stuff so you could just go out there and do whatever I would go out. At 1213 years old, I would go out into BLM land as far as I could go. And I'd find dead trees and I would build cabins and forts. Out out in the woods and then. I remember one time I found an old burn barrel that my dad let me have and I drug it out into the woods to put in my little cabin that I made, you know. And me and my cousin would sit there and camp out and stay in the cabin. We thought we were just, you know, we thought we were finding new territory. Well, that's how it feels. I I remember and I'm from Beaverton, so I'm a suburbia kid. But I remember we lived in Aloha for a while before anyone lived out there. So it was just farmland and you could go even out there. And, of course, I spent a ton of time in the woods and I'm in Portland and it felt wildernessy there. Like I remember being a little kid walking around the woods thinking I'm like um Grizzly Adams or a little house in the prairie. Like that was the vibe, right? And even connected to back then. So I was like, I am Grizzly Adams, you know. 100%. Okay, so, but so around 13, 14, you know, they present you with this option or your parents, I guess, are presented with this option where you go into the system of McLaren for two weeks, and then you go and live with this cop and his wife for a year. And it's like a program. that, so I was living at a boy's home in Eugene called Stepping Stone for troubled male teens. And I'd never broke laws, never broke into, you know, I wasn't like a thieving kid or a drug addicted kid. I was just that kid that would always get picked up because I was out running the streets at midnight one o'clock, you know. Never. curfew. Yeah, yeah, it's really what most 99 % of it came down to. I got caught with pot once on the gut, Eugene, you know, just now they don't. Yeah, I'm like, what the hell? the hell? Right. So. were you missing school too? Was that part of it? No, I never really had that big of a problem with school. So it really just you're out past curfew and they're picking you up for that. Yeah, and run, you know, run. And I always would hook up with the wrong kids, though, the kids that would go that extra, you know, extreme. And I knew, especially in the town that we lived in in Creswell, less than 3000 people, everybody knew everybody. So I was smart enough to at least, you know, not get into any serious trouble. Do we go drinking, drinking? What was it? What were those things called? You used to get them in like two liter bottles of... Party balls? it's the kegs. I know exactly what you're talking about. Coolers first came out, could get them in two liters, remember that? And Seagram, or not Seagram, but yeah, I had a buddy who worked at Wayne's Market up in Creswell, a small local grocery store, and we'd go back there in the Skylark when he would close. Yeah, Buick Skylark, and he would hand us the bottle, the two liters, you know. there's gosh around the store and we'd pick them up and we'd all head down to the river. There's another drink. It's like something 40. what was that other alcohol? the eight. 40 or Mad Dog 2020? Gut rot. Old English. That was yeah, malt liquor, the beer. Yep. I've never seen those till I got to Oregon and then it was like I'm picking up a 40. Yeah. Slamming those and yeah, it's on. Did you guys drink Henry Weinhard's I remember introducing Brian when Brian got to Oregon and we were all like, you know, Oregonians are proud of Henry Weinhard's at that time, especially because that was before the whole micro-brews. Boom. So that was the only beer from Oregon. And we're like, you have to use from Jersey. And everyone's like, you have to drink Henry Weinhard's making it sound like it's the best beer you've ever had in your entire life. And I think you said you drank it. You're like, I mean, it's OK. Oregonians, you love your uh products. We do. Yeah, we love our. ah I'm not a big beer drinker. If I drink domestic, I get a headache by the second beer. So I've always stuck with what I knew, which is Blue Moon. I love Blue Moon, unfiltered beers. Well, I tried micro beers on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2018 for the first time. Yeah. Some of them were nasty. I was like, oh, tastes like piss, you know? And then my oldest son turned me on to angry orchards. And my gosh, I was slamming those things down like water, man. They don't taste like beer, you know? Yeah. a cider yeah no it's good so so you went into the boys home what was that was that 13? like 13, 14 years old. 14, because I did my sophomore year. the first half. So I finished my sophomore year at the boys. Okay, so that's even going into 15. It almost, it sounds more like they were taking you from your parents to put you somewhere stable because your parents weren't totally watching you. Right, more about them in some ways than you. Well, think, yeah, yeah, well, because I remember that when I went to the boys home, my mom had drove me to the boys home, dropped me off there and drove off and I didn't see her again for few years. Wow. Did you know that that was going to happen? That you weren't going to see her for that long after she dropped you off? at that point our relationship was really strained and my mom and my biological dad were never, he was never around. He left when I was like a year and a half old or something. So then once all my siblings had moved out, they really focused their attention on my sister, their child that they had together. And I was just kind of. flame, you know, flaring out there. So I would act out for the attention, I think, type thing. And now when I look back on it, it's like, you know, is what it is. Yeah, but so. that I went through brought me to where I am today, which I think made me a stronger person than I would have been. Of course, of course. you did, so Boyce Home, McLaren, living with the cop, and then did you come home after living with the cop and live at home at all or did you go straight from living with the cop to enlisting in the military? No, I went from living with the cop to living with Tom and Mary Ann Potter. The family. Okay, the family. Okay, the new. article about it in the... What was that? What was that book called? The Reader's Digest. They did a big write-up about that whole story in the Reader's Digest. It's kind of funny. Featuring you, it was Reader's Digest and you were like the subject or the program was. the my dad and the program was and that I was mentioned in it they had you know how I was the first kid to go into this program and Interesting. What was the program called? I don't remember exactly what it was called, but was through uh looking glass, through the staining. okay. So they run an ad. I assume is it the court system ran an ad or the cop and his wife ran an ad? Do you know? wife because they so what happened with the cops wife. It was a weird deal so the state decided to do this program right? Mm-hmm. The cop, his name's Bob, his wife was Carla. Carla was a stay at home mom raising her kids. Well, they got somehow or another, they seen the ad about me, or not the ad, they were in tune with the state somehow. And they heard about this program where Carla decided to get involved. And then I became that first kid to get involved with living with a cop breed. Okay, all right. but what happened was through that year, Carla ended up becoming the director of this program for Looking Glass in the state of Oregon. She went from a housewife raising their own family to the director of of Looking Glass. Pretty impressive. Yeah. Unfortunately she passed away, but. oh Yeah, so... I stayed with them for a year. Once I graduated that program, that's when I went over to Tom and Mary Ann's and stayed with them until I graduated and then went into the military. And then after that, I mean, up until today, that's who I call mom and dad. He passed away, mom's still alive. Dad passed away three years ago from a massive heart attack. wow. um And yeah, it's just kind of, you know, so like my half siblings from my bio mom and stepdad, um we stay in touch a little bit through Facebook and stuff like that, but we're not real close. We're not tight knit. um And I'm pretty close with the kids from Tom and Mary Ann, what I call my siblings. Okay. but you know what I mean, we all look at each other like siblings. And they ended up, after I graduated high school and went in the military, they ended up fostering over 20 kids after me. Were you the first one then for them? That's amazing. That is amazing. And so what they did, and that's where Reader's Digest came into play, somehow they caught wind about this, was a... Tom and Mary Ann's purpose was to help troubled teens by involving them on the ranch and in the family business. So you get these kids... We had some kid, one kid that was nine years old, everybody called him Marcus Dorcas, he was a little goofy kid, but... He liked the name, you know, so he was nine years old when they got him, but they bring these troubled teens into the ranch and they, everybody started out the same. You're going to muck out and clean out 14 stalls. You're going to put the bedding in. If it takes you four days to do it, it's going to take you four days to do it. And I'll tell you, I did it. I seen other kids do it. You know, you sit on your butt. wouldn't do the work that you're supposed to do. Then you think, it's time to go in. I'm getting hungry. no, you didn't get to come in and eat. We'll bring you some food. But you're not coming in until these chores are done. Structure, yeah, exactly. And discipline, and that's what a lot of these young kids need. They just need structure, discipline. And they truly showed compassion to these. You know what mean? They ended up adopting some of Wow. okay, so your biological mom and stepdad had property, but then also Tom and Marianne had property too. So, 30 acres, wow. And was theirs mainly horses or was it all livestock? and beef. Okay, so you had vast experience of working later. with the potters, cause I ended up 16, I think it was, moving in with them until I graduated and went into the military and stuff. But a lot of people don't realize at that time, that period, especially for boys and men, about 15 and 16 up through your early 20s, you're still full of piss and vinegar and testosterone. To me, that's the important... ah That's the most important time of a kid's life, or for a boy anyway, is during those early young man years where you're trying to figure out what am I supposed to do, where am I supposed to be, you know. And then you throw a troubled teen and what they deal with on top of that, it can just really get pretty crazy. Yeah. anyways. A normal teenager, even in the most perfect household, is still volatile, still challenging, still all the normal teenage things, early 20s. So like you're saying, then throw a kid who's had issues or is troubled and that's just like double, triple what you're dealing with there. it's amazing. uh like for me, can't, I could not see myself not raising my kids. I just, couldn't, you know what I mean? The mom was, she's all right, she still lives in Arizona. But I ended up taking custody of all the kids and moving to Oregon once I got full custody with final decision making. And now that I've gone through that 10 years down the road, I stayed single, didn't date, didn't do anything, you know, just focused on. work and kids, work and kids. two of them are diabetic, type one diabetics. So they're insulin dependent. ah So a lot of people say, why didn't you date? It wasn't about me at that point. This was all about them. ah When I came back, so in 2018, I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail for Junior Diabetes Research Foundation. Mm-hmm. And it was a six month hike. came back from that hike. All the kids were living with mom and I came back just to a complete shit show. Kids busting out the windows at three in the morning and running away at 11 o'clock or I mean 10 and 11 years old. Smoking dope, running with the wrong crowd. I mean just crazy craziness. Mom was... Let's put it this way from the stories I was told in the pictures that I seen. She had beer on each tray in the fridge for different guys that would come over, you so she'd have their beer separated. And that went on the whole time I was on trail and I didn't know about it. And then, you know, she took the house phone and hid it, put it in the storage pup so they couldn't have a phone when they came home from school while she was at work. because she didn't want them calling me and you know, all that. So I came back from the hike in 2018 and three days later after being in the wilderness for six months, I get slapped with this crazy shit show going on. My oldest son, Joey, who is now ward of the court. Tyler, his younger brother, they're 13 months apart. They're both now becoming ward of the court. Tyler's still with mom, but Joey's now in a boy's home. Wow. So I just went into survival mode. That's the only thing I can really kind of relate it to is I just went into survival mode. My first thought was I got to keep them from getting locked up. I know, especially the boys, Joey's 21 and Tyler's 20 now, but at that age, they were 12, 13. Getting thrown into a boys detention center would have been the worst thing for them because what do they do? They build. camaraderie in those places, right? It doesn't become a, for most kids, punishment. It becomes a social, you know, place. Hey, we'll meet up when we get out and I'll look you up when I get out. And they go out and they cause more problems. So my goal was to really prevent Joey from getting locked up and in that situation. Well, at this point, he would already got hit from uh stealing from Target, stupid toy stuff, you know. So I just went in, I went into that mode and so I had to. I was three days back from trail. I had to get a place, get it furnished, fully operational, have the kids registered in school before the state would even let them come and stay with me. Cause the state was like, where did you go for six months? Well, I had to explain this, you know, my kids are diabetic. I did this hike for, for JDRF and, and all this stuff. So then the state for six months, I had someone from the state of Arizona in my house five days a week, every day. Wow. Interviewing kids, interviewing me, family, I don't know what they would call it, support people coming in. We'd have to do family therapy and all that stuff. And I'll tell you guys, I mean, the stories would blow your frickin mind, man. It's just crazy shit. So here I am, I'm from the trail, single dad. I'm trying to save the two boys right now. My two daughters are with mom still. I had to sleep in the, uh, leaned up against my front door cause my boys would sneak out at night out of the apartment, running the streets. I put, uh, sticks in the windows, you know, sleeping against the door so they couldn't get out all this crazy shit. Couple of times I found out Joey had snuck out before I was doing that, right? Meeting up with gangs out on the streets of Phoenix dropping. When were they taking, Xanax, often Xanax and stuff and getting real high and goofy. And I remember one morning I wake up at seven in the morning, I've got family counselors and stuff coming to the house in one hour. Joey's not in the house. I'm like, where the hell's he at? So I'm running all over the apartment complex looking for him. Can't find him freaking out. These guys, you know, now I've got probation officers, juvenile probation officers getting ready to come to the house. You know, I find Joey out in the parking lot of the apartment complex and he's just out of it, completely out of it, clueless. I could tell he was on something, right? So I'm like, get your ass. house, get your ass and go lay down, I'll figure this shit out, you know. 20, 30 minutes later, there's a knock on the door, probation, the state, three people. Oh, we're here to do our weekly meeting. And keep in mind, I've got these every day, Monday through Friday for six months, different agencies, different people, right? So they're like, well, we need Joey out here too. We need the boys out here in the living room. And I'm kind of in panic mode going, the kid can't even hardly stand, right? So I get him in the living room, he's laying in the couch and I don't know why, but I bullshit my way through it. And I'm like, yeah, he's been on, he's been taking, what was it? uh What is that stuff called? That cough syrup that they drink? Nyquil. I said, yeah, he's been on Nyquil for the last two days. He's really sick. And they bought it. And he's like, he's sitting on the couch like this is licking the couch. my god. Oh my god. and not even staying like coherent, right? And they're like, well, we'll have him go back into his room and go back to sleep. Hopefully he gets feeling better. I'm like, these people are fucking stupid. I would have picked that shit out, you know, three minutes in the house. But so that I give that a lot to, you know, my Lord Jesus Christ, he's just there. He was he was in control of the situation and. For whatever reason. So to make a long story short, I went through all this and none of them ever seen frickin' the front door of a juvenile detention center. And you know what? It's amazing because of what you went through, you were probably a hundred times more determined to make sure that that didn't happen for them. And you broke that generational trauma. You went in and fought for that. Yeah, you went in and you were like, this isn't happening with my kids. It happened with me. It's not happening with my kids. And you broke that cycle. Yeah, I guess I never really took the time to think about it that way. um You're just in survival mode, you know what I mean? You don't stop to think about that kind I think as parents, lot of us Gen Xers have worked really hard to be the person that we needed when we worked for our own kids. We became the person we needed when we were a kid for our kids. Because we were all, what do they call us, latch key kids or something? I mean. so and to break the generational trauma, to break the cycle. I mean, you're you're sleeping against the door so your son doesn't sneak out. That takes effort. That takes strength. That takes not giving up on your kid. The hardest thing is parenting. It's easy to let your kids do whatever they want. It's hard to not. So hard. the fact that you broke that cycle. is amazing honestly that you went through all that and because of your own experience especially you were determined to not let that happen to your sons. Yeah, I didn't want to see them get wrapped up in the same thing. Yeah. to go back to your story in this is that, so you had gone through this program, you had done all the things. You had done the Boys Home, you had done McLaren, you had done the Year with the Cop, you had done your time with Tom and Mary Ann, who became your parents. I'm saying their names right, right? Tom and Mary Ann? Okay. So, those became your family. uh So, I don't understand why did the court still insist that you need to enlist in the military? So. I was, I had to have been, it was my senior year in high school. I don't even remember why. I don't even remember what I did, but somehow because I was still in that program, I did something stupid, but not detrimental, you know what I mean? I don't even remember. It had to have been that stupid. I don't even remember what it was, but I just remember I had to go to court over it, juvenile court, and that's where the judge was like, I'm going to admit, know. gave me the ultimatum. You're almost 18. You can either finish out your six months of being 17 in juvie or go in the military. That was in Creswell? So it almost sounds like you were kind of on, quote unquote, probation or whatever, like you would call it that. And if you did one thing wrong, now you're... So whatever it was, it could have been the smallest thing. I got into and all that, and I was still word of the court because I wasn't an adult. I wasn't emancipated. So they still had to check in with the state and you know, all that. So what branch of the military did you enlist in and how long did you serve? Well, I served three years, no action, no duty, dead time. was nothing going on. We got called out to help with some forest fires in Oregon. And I got injured and uh got hit in the eye with a uh dirt cloud that had a rock in it. and gave me 20 over 200 vision in my left eye. So I ended up getting a medical honorable discharge uh three years in my military. So what does that mean in your left eye? Is it blurry? Yeah, it's legally blind. You can't tell my pupil stays completely dilated in my left eye. And so if I close my right eye, I still have light and I can kind of see objects, but everything's blurred. Okay, so then you get a medical discharge and did you travel at all? Like were you stationed anywhere? So it's just local. yeah. wasn't, because I, when I enlisted, I went to Georgia, did my basic training, AIT, all that stuff, came back for four weeks, was waiting to get my, uh where I was gonna be stationed at, my orders to go to my station. And that's when we got called to fight this fire, my unit. Some of them were here in Oregon. We just got out of AIT and stuff. So we had to join forces with the Oregon National Guard and go down to... Where was that? Close to Medford, think. I don't think it was that far down, but it was called the White Horse Fire, mid-80s. So, Grants Pass, I think, yeah. So we went down and we... So that's when I got injured during that time. So I didn't even have 180 days of active military in before I got booted and discharged with the medical honor. Now, did they? um they kept me enlisted for three years, but unactive. And then after three years, they finally gave me a boot. Did they give you any benefits like for college or nothing like that? So then did you ever do any? stipend, I think, of like 12 grand or something. you know, 22 years old, I probably pissed that away at strip clubs and bars, who knows. So, when you had the medical discharge, what did you do? What was your next step? Um question. Boy, you're really digging. She's getting a whole timeline. So I was nine pounds. No. So what happened? So oh I went to work at a couple lumber mills in Creswell, Cottage Grove, just, you know, dead end jobs at the time, pulling green chain, doing what I could do to get by. No real goals or anything. And I heard about this thing called Job Corps. I think my mom or somebody had mentioned it to me and I was like, what's Job Corps? Okay. And at this point I was... uh I had an apartment for a while. was uh couch hopping on friends' couches, you know, working at the mills together and stuff. And uh so I started checking out this Job Corps thing. And... kind of put it off on the back burner, got the job at the collection agency, did that for a few years. And then I went back to that job core thing, because I kept on remembering, I remembered job core will take people up to 26 years old at certain campuses. Right. So I was like, well, let's try this thing out again, you know, pulling green chain. see all these guys that are disabled and crippled by the time they're 40. I don't want to be that guy, right? So I ended up checking out the Job Corps thing and went up to Washington and got into the Job Corps program for business management. So what is the Job Corps program? Is it where they will cover your college courses? Basically, so it's on the job training. And then if you graduate through the on job training program and they house you, they feed you, they give you a stipend every month, you It's a great program that you started out for troubled kids. Now. Anybody and everybody can join. Doesn't cost you anything, it's federally funded. In fact, I have a... cousin that just graduated last year ah and is now a bulldozer operator. So they do heavy equipment down to finance and everything in between nursing courses and you know that kind of thing. So it's like a college campus. I was in a dorm but you go to job training every day. ah If you don't have your diploma or a GED when you first enter into Job Corps, the first thing they do is they get you your GED or your diploma, depending on how many credits you're short. And then you go into your field of choice and you start on the job training. Once you've completed that on the job training, you can stay in Job Corps and they will extend your post-education. to get your associate's degree. And you can stay on campus and go to a local community college or whatever and get your associate's degree. Okay, okay. I have a question. Let's come back to this. But you mentioned the green train. What is that? Green chain? Green chain. Yeah. Yeah. and plywood, when you're working in the lumber mill, especially in a plywood uh production company where they're producing sheet supply wood. You can do it in lumber too, dimensional lumber, but I did it in the plywood area. So you're pulling green chains. So you know how your plywood has multiple layers uh of sheeting? So when they peel that log, It'll peel out a gross size sheet of oh wood, plywood, very thin, eighth of a millimeter thin. And that'll come down on a chain table. And you got guides that are standing on each side of the table. And you're grading that sheet as it comes down. So it might be A grade, B grade, C grade, D grade, whatever they're running through the log peeler for that ship. and then you have to pull that stuff off of a green chain what they call a green chain a big conveyor pull that off into a goes into a tray on wheels basically and you build these big stacks and then they take that and they run it through a dryer because when they're peeling it off the log it's wet and they're water over it so I would pull that stuff off wet and there's a trick to it you got to learn the trick of the trade right so you're pulling a four by five or five by six sheet of laminate coming off of the log you got a flippin' off of that table and if you do it right, it'll float off that table and you can control it into the stack. So you're just pulling that all day long. Pulling green chain is what they call it. It's a very physical demanding job, especially if you're doing it with dimensional lumber. So like, you know, every time you go into a lumber store, Home Depot, whatever, and you see a unit of wood. That was hand-stacked off a green chain by somebody in that mill. Okay, and I can see how physically doing that repetitive... Is that the danger of it all? The repetitive nature of the physical work that eventually just shoots your joints or elbows or whatever it is? and you have to, you can't let the tables, you ever seen that loose seal skit where they're doing the candies and it starts backing up? Yeah, you got to be able to keep that table clean so that the lumber doesn't back up and you have to shut everything down. so, you know, I've seen, especially in the plywood industry, I've seen laminate that will split off. into shards. I've seen it stick through people's arms and things like that. It can be a dangerous job, but it's really a physically demanding job. And there's a lot of it that still goes on up here in the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, I'm sure. Okay, so you worked the medical billing, got that experience, you went into the Job Corps and you chose business? Business management, yeah. And did you finish that program? And then did they set you up with a job? ah Well, they, I could have had the option, but at that time I had a girlfriend that was not in Job Corps and she had her own apartment. I finished Job Corps, I was right there in that apartment. And, ah But I ended up not going into business management and I went to a lumber yard and I drove forklift for a couple years. And this is still in Oregon? Okay. And doing construction work. And then that's when I, ah that's when I found the job at the collection agency. Okay, so you okay? Yeah, okay? All right? And there wasn't a lot of jobs in the construction business. I didn't want to go back into the mill business, you know, working in the mills. So that's how I found that job at the collection agency at Al Gordon and Associates. And the rest is history. just, had a knack for getting money out of people. So. that was after, I was thinking that was before Job Corps. So you did Job Corps and then you went into the collection agency and then, okay, and then you just did that in Oregon? For how long were you in Oregon doing that? Up until 1999, I think I was 33. And then I went to Arizona. time or anything? Yeah, I got married ah when I lived in Washington and found out seven years later the child wasn't mine. ah But we had divorced early, like two years in, because she would always make, you know, it was very, yeah, hostile. relationship. She was full-blooded Indian. She was an alcoholic. She'd get physical. know, growing up, I was always taught you're a man if you get hit by a woman, you take it. You know what I mean? So I ended up leaving. We got divorced. I stayed in the child's life up until he was five. Mm-hmm. then found out that I wasn't the biological dad and then she wouldn't allow me to see him anymore. my goodness. Have you seen him since? Nah, he's mid-20s now, or 30s actually. That's rough. I thought I don't even know where he's at. I've tried to find him, but... How old were you when that happened? early mid-twenties. So this is after the argument. yeah, this was Job Corps. I met her in Job Corps. She actually worked there. And I was a student and then got involved with her and then. OK, so you had you got married, you got divorced. You lived in Oregon working um finance basically until 99. Yeah, in 99, I had a buddy of mine, we were both working at the collection agency, well he had gotten married and left state and went to Arizona, we were like best friends for long time. And he called me up one day and he goes, dude, you gotta get down here. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's hot, it's Arizona, I don't know shit about it, right? He's like, I can get you on with a mortgage company down here. I'm like, what? mortgage company I don't know shit about it right don't just come down here trust me Just one of those whims again, I thank God leading me to go. It was just one of those things where I woke up two days later. Not really knowing what I was doing, but I was packing all my stuff and I was loading my truck and not really. You're kind of in a fog. But I knew it was the right thing to do. Don't ask me how, but. And loaded up my truck, went and got my last paycheck and I started heading down the road to Arizona. Didn't know anybody there except for my buddy Tony. Didn't know what I was going to do. Had a thousand bucks in my pocket. No place to stay. His wife didn't, she didn't like us being friends because we drank a lot. She had left for like a month to go to her parents that was out of state. So he's like, stay with me for the month. know, Cindy isn't going to be there. You know, and uh. I'll help you out and we'll get you into a place and get you set up. So I'm like, I'll check it out. So I drove down and for the first two weeks it was just a party. And then he had a buddy that lived at his same HOA community who had just became single and had a three bedroom house. name was Chris. He goes, hey, I'll rent you a room. I got a place. All right, cool. And then Tony was like, can get you a job at this mortgage company. But it was commission only. So I went there for the first two months and I tried to figure out what it was all about. Well, it really intrigued me, the finance side of it. I knew that I didn't know enough, I think. So I went to work for a couple of big collection agencies in Phoenix. big, big national agencies. um And just did really well. Learned that I had a knack. I was always the number one, number two producer every month. um I like conversing with people. fact finding, there's a lot of fact finding in that job and trying to get information without letting the person know you're fact finding, you know what I mean? Through just normal conversation. And found out I had a knack for it, so I spent. Between Oregon or between Washington and Arizona, I spent about 30 years or I should say about 20 years in the third party collection business. So once I realized I liked it, I was good at it. um I had a couple opportunities where some investors have more money than they knew what to do with. um We're interested in the debt buying business. And I said, well, shoot, I know everything about it. You need to know. just have always happened to be in the right place at the right time and the right people involved. So, you know, in collections, I ended up working for an attorney who taught me all the legal regulations and state and federal. And when it comes to debt regulation and all that, I just I buried myself in that industry and learned everything I could possibly learn. In the first 10 years. about debt buying, credit, reporting, how to sue somebody, how to execute on a writ of garnishment, how to, you know, garnish someone's wages if I need to, how to attach assets, how to... So I just buried myself in that business and went back to the mortgage business when the mortgage boom really took off in like 2004, 2005. And... I said, well, you know. out there for about three months at a mortgage company and all these guys are working with realtors and trying to find people to you know get business from right and I'm sitting there going I don't know anybody I don't know shit I can I don't run an ad trying to I don't know what the hell how am I going to get business right back then if you got in the mortgage business they didn't give you leads you go find your own shit Just like a real one, right? Yeah. And then I had a light bulb that went off one day. I spent like three, four weeks. Where am I going to find homeowners? How do I solicit people? How do I get business? And I had another buddy of mine who was at a collection agency and he had called me up and he was asking me about the mortgage business and all this and how it was going. I said, yeah, just struggling for accounts, man, just trying to find business. And he goes, I'll tell you what, he goes, I'm working this new product for American Express. And these are all charged off debt. Their accounts are like two, three years old, you know. ah That's the sweet spot in the age of debt. If you can catch a consumer, typically within two years, they've rebound from their credit situation. And you can typically get a debt settled or paid. He goes, well, I'll start screening homeowners for you and I'll send them your way. And if you can do a refinance and get me paid. And I was like, fucking brilliant. Yeah. brilliant, right? I'm like, yeah, okay, I'm down. Do that shit. These are prime borrowers because they're all Amex customers. It's not shitty credits, know, subprime paper, that type of thing. I can get you guys in on the truth and lending on the till and get you paid out directly from the lender at closing. And I can typically get these loans closed within 60 days. So this is great. So I did a couple. It worked. And I was just like, holy fuck, fuck, okay. How do I expand on this? I'm gonna start calling fucking collection agencies everywhere, right? So I did, I just started calling collection agencies. I get some collector that just answered the phone and I'd pitch him, hey, my name's Wes with American Home Loans and I used to be a debt collector like you. I can help you get into commission faster. Well, how? send me your homeowners, I'll refinance them, make sure they get paid. You get paid through the refi on the truth and lending. I'll send you the check directly to your company so you don't have to worry about, you know, the debtor getting it and you'll get paid. I was putting collectors and commissions so fast. I couldn't. My phone was fucking blowing up because. sense. This collector was telling his collector next to him was telling the guy next to him. He's a big call centers, right? So I got to the point within like two weeks, I had more business than I could handle. So I started giving shit out to other loan officers. I don't care. I don't need to get paid on it. Just get it closed. Let me know when it closes so I can make sure this bill collector gets paid, right? Yeah. So about two months goes by and I get called into the GM's office. And he goes, what the fuck are you doing? And I knew this guy from previous years. His name was Matt He was a buddy of mine before I got in the mortgage business. So Matt calls me into his room, into his office and he's like, what the fuck are you doing? He goes, you're out producing everybody on the floor and you're giving people business. What's the catch? So keep in mind, they were only closing three to four loans a month at this point. I come in, now we're closing 14 to 20 in 60 days. So I said, well, this is kind of what I got going on. This is what I'm doing. So he fucking calls his partner, Don. Don, come in my office, right? So Don comes in, explain this to Don. So I explained the whole thing again. And they're like, do you think you could like expand on that? I was like, well, yeah. And they said, see what you can do in 90 days. Don't write me loans. Just get leads and give them out to the other loan officers. They had like eight LOs in there at the time. Let's see what you can do. All right. 90 days later, we were closing over 50 loans a month. So then I was like, well, fuck. And I'm only getting leads from maybe four or five collection agencies, right? store. So I went to Matt and Don and I said, well, let's go to lunch. I got a proposal for you guys. And I'm still pretty green in the mortgage business. But I know enough to get through an application, right? So I'll tell you what, I want you guys to give me a shot. Give me 90 days to travel the country. I will go into collection agencies and I will pitch them personally. I'll train their people how to pre-qualify a homeowner. And I'll build the biggest fucking pipeline of loans that you've ever seen. And they're like, all right, we'll give you a shot. So 90 days in, they are now, we went from eight loan officers to like 15. We're adding more loan officers. Now I'm getting calls from collection agencies saying, hey, we heard from this collector over here about you guys do work with collection agencies and oh so then what I ended up doing is I ended up branding. a program I called the HELP program, Home Equity Loan Program, and was the acronym HELP. So then what I did is I just went to a fucking banner place and I had a print me out a bunch of big banners, black banners that said American Home Loans, H-E-L-P in big cap letters, HELP Loan Program. And I went to a bunch of collection agencies and I hung them fuckers up on their call floors. And I said, now, train your collectors to pre-screen, because that's part of your job as a bill collector, verify information, pre-screen, you know, and then try to collect, right? I said, already asking their debtors the question, are you a homeowner? How long have you owned your home? How much is your mortgage payment? It's a perfect opening to go in and say, hey, have you looked at doing a debt consolidation refinance? So that took off and it really started going well. I started traveling all over the country, different states. I've been to, I don't know, I've been to 47 of the 50 states in the country in the lower 48. 47 out of the 48. And I just kept on doing it over and over and over, right? Well, I was going to their store and I'd spend sometimes two or three days talking about how to. Don't ah juggle the... the Don't make a, what's the word I'm looking for? Don't make a. You know what I'm talking about. I'm having a brain fart, but... co-mingle the mortgage or refi with the debt type of thing. Yeah, basically know that we'll check if it's there. Okay. Bet you've got the equity in the home type of thing. Right. Or we'll find out if we do. And we would typically start off with 80 and just depending on the consumer, what we've seen on the... ah the black uh good and bad, so to speak. So we would check it out and we'd know and we'd it out. uh So make a long story short. lying or hiding shit when you're doing a refi, right? Or even a mortgage. You guys find everything you need to know. Yeah, there's no secret. some of them, you know, if they're at 90 % LTV, then we just close it out and yeah, sorry, nothing we can do. And we'd update the collector and send them back over to them and they'd figure out what they were going to do. ah how did the housing bust? Well, this is before that. know. How did the housing bust affect you? In 07, so at this point, kind of go back, so when the housing crisis hit, I had at this point had opened up the help program and was running the home equity loan program and doing that whole gig there. So in 2007, when the crash came, Within 48 hours, was completely unemployed. 48 hours. Oh yeah, they came in. It was on the news. They came in and basically came into our call center. We were in a big ass building. And they took all of the subprime mortgage companies and they all got closed up. The only people that were operating at that point in 07 were AA credit mortgage companies in your banks. And most of them were starting to close up those programs as well. When you say they, are you talking federal agencies or just the owners of the company? Because it had completely stopped, right? All mortgages basically stopped. So it was just like we're shutting down type of thing. Yeah, well, what happened was that they came in and the government started changing the programs because about every eight years or so the mortgage business takes a hit. it's typically rising on uh interest rates, the cost to do the loan, and a bunch of different factors that come into play. In 2017, they started with the subprime lenders, the people, you could have a 500 credit score and still get a refinance if you had enough equity in your home. And then, uh so they killed that first, then the FICO score went to the lowest FICO score we could take was a 580. uh That's called uh medium subprime lending. So it's not the bottom of the barrel, it's kind of mid, it's not prime. And then the lenders that were focusing on the subprime lending and the mid-prime lending were the companies that were closing up shop as fast as you could hit a remote control. So within 48 hours you were done? Done. So what did you do? So I, what did I do? So for the first year, I just tried to find a way to get back into the business, into the mortgage business, but there was so many mortgage companies that had closed and few that were up and running. It was almost impossible to get on with somebody. ah So I ended up opening up a couple of collection agencies for some investors. out of state investors, one guy out of Tennessee and excuse me, they would hire me to come in and get their licensing in place, find the building, staff it, train everybody, bring in their clients so they have business to collect on. So basically I'd spend one or two years building up a collection agency to a full operational capacity. And then I would hand over the keys to the investor and go on to the. Would you do all of this in Arizona or were you traveling and doing this? This was all in Arizona. So most of the collection agencies that I built were all in AZ. Right. ah enough money in the mortgage business where you could kind of chill or was it still needed to grunt? No, I was still grinding because my whole goal at that time when in 07, what I was shooting for was to make satellite office, build satellite offices in like six states, starting in Arizona. Right. So all the money that I was making off of the national. Debt Recovery Department. I was putting right back into the department so that could hire more loan officers, build out the stations. And I was still really pushing on my campaigns right now for new customers, new clients. So at this point, I had landed at DiscoverCard, American Express as my two main clients. a bunch of different lenders, banks, Bank of America. Always shoot for the big ones, right? That's always been my mantra. Go for the big ones. Yeah. And so... uh When the crash came in 07, I'll never forget it. I got a call at home in my underwear. I was getting ready for work that day. And they said, turn on the TV. I turned on the TV and I see loan officers walking out of my office with equipment. Wow. I'm like, what the hell is going on? I hadn't even heard about this shit yet. It all happened that night overnight. I log into my computer and at two thirty or three o'clock in the morning. I don't know what their title was at the time. Whoever run handles government housing with with Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac and all that had sent out a letter to all the mortgage brokers across the country. saying that all these programs were being shut down. Happened literally overnight. So you guys had no idea it was coming. it was coming. It's wild too because you had those marquee customers, you would have no indication either. Yeah, they were sending over all these, you know, customers we were we were killing at this point. Now we're booking over what we were doing over 12 million dollars a volume a week in refines. And we were paying off, you know, AMEX and Discover and all these guys. I had the. Executive team from DiscoverCard come out from Ohio and meet with us in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona and. and met with them and pitched them this program and put it together to make this thing work. And lost it in 07 as fast as I could have lost it when the market crashed. So after the market crash and all this happened, you were still hustling. Oh, had, girl, I had boxes and boxes of stress balls, stress houses, mouse pads, wrists, everything. Because I would go into these big call centers and I would hand out all of this merchandise ah and mugs and all this shit. And that's, and they would send me their leads of homeowners. And I just continued to build off of that. So when 07 came and the market crashed, All of your subprime and alt-A lenders closed shop. The only people that could get a loan were anybody with excellent credit. No collection accounts, no issues. ah So then you started doing these, you started uh becoming almost like a consultant to help people set up collection agencies. Well, right, right, right. Yes. So I helped four different investors open up shops in uh Phoenix, Scottsdale and Paradise Valley, Arizona. ah what did you do after that? After helping you said you did that for a few years, then what did you do? I, and this is what's odd, is I answer to ad one day for a fire equipment and life safety company based out of Arizona. Didn't know shit about it. and they wanted someone to make collection calls. It's all they wanted, just a bill collector to come in and never had worked in uh QuickBooks or anything like that. So I showed up, did the interview. They offered me the position. And within 12 months, I had taken over the department, got rid of their accounts receivable manager and took over their accounts receivable. ah That was the first 12 months. 18 months in, I decided I'm going to do this hike, the Pacific Crest Trail, right? What motivated you to do that? Um, it was an odd situation. I had seen the movie, uh, with Reese Witherspoon called, I think, The Mile or something like that, which you had to be the Pacific Crest Trail restaurant. You ever see that movie? seen that. I even know she made a movie. Yeah, me neither. About that. called mile or the mile, one of the two. Yeah, Reeth Witherspoon did it. And basically she hiked the first thousand miles of the PCT. Now is this a documentary or is this a fictional movie? Okay. So you were motivated from the movie? watched that movie and what pissed me off about that movie is I was born and raised in Oregon and never heard of the Pacific Crest Trail the whole time I lived here. Didn't even know it. Been on it. Riding horses. Riding horses. Been on it. But just never for what it never correlated Pacific Crest Trail. So anyway. uh Yeah, so I decided to do this this hike So you were 18 months in into you had taken over at this fire and safety company. Yeah. But at this point, are you married with kids at all? Yeah. So what about on the first divorce? The first divorce, right? yeah, yeah, yeah. So and then I remarried in 20. Was it 04, I think? In Arizona. Okay, so while you're a mortgage lender and during all that time the collection agency mortgage lender you're married and having and starting a family. we've got four kids together. Yeah, I'm doing all that. you meet your wife, your ex-wife now? Okay, so you guys met at a bar. met at a club at a bar uh one night in Arizona. Yeah, yeah. And her dad is a very successful entrepreneur. And so him and I hit it off. He builds stuff. It's crazy. But and so her dad and I kind of got along pretty good. And. Yeah, so we ended up getting married and then we had four kids and. from the time you guys met till you got married? like a year, year and a half. And then did you have all four kids pretty close together? Uh, yeah, so my youngest is 14, Jessica. She lives with mom. The other three live with me. So Jessica's 14, Sedona is 18, Tyler is 20, and Joseph is 21. Yeah, so that's pretty close together. So you guys are married when you're going through all this stuff, when the housing crisis happened, you guys are still married. You're working for the company. uh You've helped the different companies start the collection agency businesses for a few years. And then now you're working at the fire and safety company. Is that correct? And you pretty much revamped. sounds like that whole system sounds like everywhere you go, you level it up from what I'm hearing. start somewhere and you take it up to the next level and kind of take over a little bit. I do and that's an Achilles heel because it's gotten me in trouble before with places, you know, because I'll come in. I just have this, I don't know what you call it, knack, whatever, but I get in, give me a couple of days and I can start finding issues. Well, that needs to be fixed. There's a problem there. Your productivity is lagging because of this or this person, you I'm used to running large call center. I'm used to doing training seminars where I'm training 600 or 1000 people at a time up on a stage. So with PowerPoint and all that stuff. it's just that leadership's koi, I guess, that I have in me where it just automatically kicks in and you start, okay, you know what I mean? Yeah, you got a problem solver. see what needs to be solved and you yeah, you start solving it. So what so it sounds like. Yes, yeah. guy, know, he's a jackass cocky. But I'm like, you know what? Yeah. But 99 % of the time I'm right. I'm never wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And it depends on who you're talking that, you know, if you're talking to people that are fairly secure, then they probably take it better than people who are coming from a more insecure place. Like they're naturally going to be offended by whatever you have to say, even if what you're saying is rational. They're not going to take it well because of where they are, you know, more than where you are. So. a lot of times it'd be kind of like, well, who's this new guy coming in here? So I had to learn to kind of play it off. And just, you know, my first couple of weeks, just another another soldier just put me in a desk, I'll do my thing, I'll shut up, keep to myself, you know, but it always ends up coming out. Typically, if they hear my to or my talk off because It's always been the same for years. know, I come in, I ID myself, ID who I'm talking to, get the facts, get the information, find a solution, and try to wrap up that call in three to five minutes and move on to the next. oh why you're so successful always in collections and in mortgage. There's also a sales technique to all of that. You're selling people to give them your information so you can collect money from them. That's a sales technique. Same with mortgages. So, you know, there's a lot of levels to what you were doing and why you were good at it. It sounds like you were at that fire and safety company. You said you were 18 months in before you went on the hike. Did you leave that job to go hike? here's the crazy shit about that job. I still look back and I kind of shake my head. So I was there for 18 months. But I want to say 12 or 13 months in, I decided I was going to do that hike, right? The Pacific Crest Trail. So I was trying to do the right thing, thinking that the more time I give them, the better it's going to look on me. I'm not going to look like a piece of shit. And my reputation is important to me in business. So I gave them a six month. ah heads up. In six months I'm going to go do this hike. Just letting you know if you have time. uh And I'd already, I'd just signed a deal with JDRF, Junior Diabetes Research Foundation, to make them my affiliate partner. And I had a couple of uh sponsors. Well, in this meeting at the time it was called American Fire Equipment and Safety. So I'm kind of giving them a heads up what I plan, what my plans are and all that. Well, all of sudden they're like, well, how can we get involved? I'm sitting there not expecting that whatsoever, So I'm like... Well, I can add you guys as a sponsor. I guess, know, throw you on the shirt. And they're like, you're going to do sponsors? And then, so then they start collaborating. And they're like, well, what if we give you a six month leave of absence? Keep your position. You go do this site, promote us with your other sponsors and then we'll keep your job here when you come back and then you can come back and do your thing. That's amazing. That's amazing. Yes. Did you counter with as long as you keep paying me for six months or? Yeah, that would have been real nice. Yeah. but I was just uh I was very thankful to be able to finally open up about it while I was at work and talk to people, you know, not having to have this big secret, you know. Yeah, well, what? OK, so we skipped that whole. Yeah, so this is I assume that this inspiration came from two of your children being type one. Is that where this came from? Well, I knew I wanted to hike the Pacific Crest Trail when I watched that Wild, with Reeth, gosh, can't wait to get my teeth. Reeth Witherspoon, okay. So was the inspiration behind em these partnerships with the junior diabetes and all of that because of your two children that were type 1, is that what started this? Yeah, yeah, because they were at this point now are well, I should take that back. One is diabetic. At this point. at that point, did you know right away that they were diabetic? because we were at home when Tyler, my 20 year old son, he was diagnosed first. And I was still married to his mom at that point. We were still together and all that stuff. Sedona was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes like five, six years later. Okay, was this when they were young children? Well, Tyler was seven and Sedona was 13. What are the symptoms, you know, for... Tyler is older than Sedona. So Tyler was diagnosed at seven. Sedona was diagnosed at 13. Sedona's 18 now, Tyler's 20. Okay, so what were the symptoms that led you to the path of discovering that they were type 1? Well, Tyler, he became really skinny, but didn't know it because his clothes were baggy on him. And at this age, he's like seven, eight years old, seven, I think. So we're kind of giving him a little bit of privacy in the shower, that type of thing. And I happened to walk in on him. as he was out of the shower drying off. And I about shit my pants. It looked like a bag of bones. I could see every bone in his body. Mm-hmm. So that was my first, what the hell's wrong? And I'm like, Tyler, you are way, you look malnourished. What the hell, what's going on? I feel fine. Well, his mom was really thin like that when she was a kid too. So I didn't really, I was like, okay, well, you know, look pretty thin, concerned, but, and we go to the skate park that day. We go to the skate park. And this kid cannot keep down water or Gatorade. He's just drinking as fast as he could go and he's peeing it out as fast as he could go. ah So I jumped on my phone looking for symptoms and it said diabetes. I didn't really know much about diabetes at that point. It was a Friday afternoon, 5, 6 o'clock, right? So I take him home. He jumped in the shower. That's when I see him. Bag of bones. ah So I started asking him about it. You you look really thin and you know, you okay? uh By that evening Friday, he's starting to pass out. We can't keep him awake. ah So Kim, my ex-wife, his mom, finally says, I'm going to take him into the hospital and get him checked out. And I was like, yeah, we need to because all the symptoms now we're looking on our phones, just saying diabetes, diabetes, diabetes. So she takes him in. just to carry them into the ERs. It's blood sugars that just under 1200. my goodness, my goodness. Yeah, I mean, off the charts high, right? um So he ends up in the hospital for like almost two weeks. As they're getting his blood sugar, you know, we're like, what's diabetes? What is this shit? You know, what's going on? um And Tyler's done really well with his diabetes. Doesn't have issues. He bullies it, you know, he's always on point with it. He's really good. So then we found out that it could be hereditary within the family. So we had everybody checked out for the possibility. They can tell you if you may have it in the future or not, or you know, the possibilities. Yeah, I can't remember the exact terminology for it, but there's a test that they run. They can tell you probability if you're going to have type one diabetes or not, or if you're, you know, well. So we had that test run on the other three kids and they all came back good except for Sedona. That test was spot on. Five years later, she was admitted in the hospital, blood sugar over 600, type 1 diabetic. Did you guys approach that differently with her though because you knew it might be coming? So were you way more aware of signs quicker? Yeah, were, yeah, a lot more aware of symptoms and things like that. And yeah, you can pick up on things and, um, and we knew, but at that point when Sedona was diagnosed, we were already, Yeah, we were already divorced. Okay, okay, so yeah. uh being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as I was on trail, on the Pacific Crest Trail, hiking for diabetes research and awareness. Okay, so that brings us back. So your company more than supports you on this hike to bring awareness to juvenile diabetes. Your wife at the time, was she a stay-at-home mom? Oh, right there when I decided to do this hike? Yeah, so we had just, I decided to do it. She was stay at home, mom. At this point we were already sleeping in separate beds and stuff. Okay, so you were living together, but you were kind of separating. But she was stay at home mom, so you went to do this hike. She knew you were going to do it, I assume. point I had moved out now. I'd already moved out. Divorce was filed. ah Correct. Right. Okay. And originally all four kids went with her. And then you decide to do this hike. Did you have shared custody where they would spend like every other weekend? we had shared custody, 50-50 custody. So I was getting the kids on the every other weekend. And then if I could get them every weekend, I'd drop whatever and I would make sure I got them every weekend, right? So I was always trying to get as much time with them as possible. Mom had agreed. Now that I looked retrospect on the situation, it was a smart move. But mom had agreed for the boys to go on the hike with me in 2018, up until two months before I was ready to take off. And then she pulled the plug, because she had final decision making at that time. Arizona has a parental final decision making clause in their custody paperwork. So one parent always has the final say. That's interesting. uh So she pulls the plug on it and I was pissed. But now that I look back on it retrospective, it was smart. Joey was only 12. Tyler was 11. And uh I've seen kids doing the hike, but to complete the hike is a different story, right? Right, right. a tough trail. It's the hardest in the US for sure. Pacific Crest Trail. Yeah, because you're going through the Sierras and you know Mount Whitney and all that. So now that I look at retrospect it was probably the smartest thing. How did you prepare for that hike? Had you been hiking through your life, like every weekend doing a hike to prepare? Did you just go for it? I stepped on that trail 270 pounds drinking half a fifth of whiskey a day smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a No way. If you guys are really interested in hearing the story, I don't want to keep you here for hours. No, no, that's what that's what we're all about. I do have a question though, really quick. I don't want to throw us off, but are you type two? And had you known that before you hit the trailer, did you find it out later? I found it out. A before I went on trail, something like that. A couple months before. So. So how did you prepare because you said you were basically out of a fifth of whiskey So I'm picturing you watch this movie, Wild, now that you said that title, I've heard of that movie, I haven't watched it, but you watched Wild, you got inspired to do this hike, you're not a hiker, but you decided this looks great, your son ... in the outdoors, hunting, fishing, camping. Right. Your one son has been diagnosed type 1, had been diagnosed as a child, so you're like, why don't I do this for charity basically or for awareness, to bring awareness to type 1 juvenile diabetes, but you're not a hiker. It all came, now that you put it that way, gets me little choked up when I think about it. The hike started out was a mission for myself. Okay. After I seen the movie, diabetes wasn't even in the picture. Or, you know, doing the hike for diabetes wasn't even in the picture. Tyler had already been diagnosed. But I got so enthralled with that trail, I knew I had to do it. So I knew I was going to do the trail. how, where, what, when, I had no clue but I knew I was gonna do this trail. We went through the divorce. We got divorced I think in 2016. so then I was major alcoholic for about five years, three years before we divorced and then two years after we divorced. Mm-hmm. I was a functioning alcoholic. I could drink a fifth to a fifth of Evan Williams whiskey and wake up the next morning, go to work completely fine, not hung over or nothing. Never went to work drunk, know, didn't drink until after work. Did that for five years. And, I met a guy named Gates Dixon. And he was kind of a goofy guy. was taking care of his elderly mom. Told him about this crazy hike that I wanted to do. And he got enthralled with it as well. So, and we were both living in apartments at the time. Well, we got this wild hair. We were going to do this hike together and we went got a house together, right? So we got a house together. We're prepping, getting ready for this hike. I'm excited, I'm working on sponsorships. Well, this guy ends up disappearing and flaking on me one day. Just woke up one morning, he had moved out, took all the gear, I got him and left. my gosh. So I was like, what the hell? Okay. Found out he went to Colorado or something and got together with an ex-wife or something. I don't know, just flaked out. So then I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm doing this hype by myself, right? Still drinking half a fifth of whiskey a day, smoking a pack and a half of smokes a day. I'm 270 pounds. wear a 549 inch waist pant, you know? And my fat dumb ass thinks he's gonna get out there and hike this hike, right? I step on trail, I've got pictures with a 80 pound pack. overweight. and I'm gonna do this hike. So, I alcohol it for five years. I stepped on the Pacific Crest Trail with a carton of cigarettes in my pack and two fifths of Evan Williams whiskey, bourbon whiskey. fucking idiot. made it four days the first day or four miles the first day. And had to set up tent in the dark that first day. It took me all day to make four miles. I'm dying because I've looked into hiking the Appalachian Trail, the AT, right? Everyone talks about ultra light. No one's bringing up two fifths of booze and in a carton of cigarettes, right? Yeah. They're trying to get down to like 20 pounds, you roll in with 80 pounds. Yeah. That's funny. so much shit from other hikers on trail about the size of my pack. It was a 90 liter pack. These guys are all humping 40 liter pack. Right. But I'm a creature of comfort and I, know, military background. I was an infantry dragon gunner. I was a grunt. All, you know, packing out deer out of ravines and shit like that, you know, 120 pounds of deer meat and stuff, know, so I was just like, no biggie. Yeah. um I lost 65 pounds within the first two months of being on trail. Wow. I haven't drank a drop of whiskey since. don't smoke that trail. think here up here on my arm stand up. That trail will fix any fucking buddy's problems that they have if they give it a chance. I was a Bolivian drunk overweight alcoholic smoking and two to three months in on that trail. I didn't even have them. inkling of a thought of any of it. It's amazing. I drank the first fifth on trail. The second fifth, I ended up dumping out and carrying the empty bottle out to trash. Quit smoking the cigarettes and I lost 70 pounds on trail. And that was in 2018. Now I'm 200 pounds. I've gained 15 pounds because I've got to carb up before I get on trail. Cause I'm going to burn. I'll burn. 20 pounds in the first month, first three weeks. So I'm on a calorie intake right now, trying to get to about 215. When I got off the trail in 2018, I went from 265 to 190, 185. So and then I came back, fought for my kids and went through that whole process, right? Well, so you quit both alcohol and cigarettes on trail on your own. You're hiking this trail on your own, which is challenging enough for anyone. ah Solo hike. I was going to ask you, you went solo. And then quit out. You've been drinking for five years and smoking. of whiskey every day, seven days a week. Did you go through physical withdrawals on trail? No, or if I did, I didn't know it because I was so focused on the hike and miles and getting from point A to point B and miles, miles, miles, make sure I got my water. Over, and it takes about three or four months on trail, but what happens is you go through a... separation point where you kind of separate from reality in a sense from civilization. I know that sounds weird, but the only thing you your mind starts to focus on food, water. Where am I going to sleep? Food, water. Where am I going to sleep? Food, water. Where am I? on top of, oh wow, look at that beautiful mountain. Look at that gorgeous tree. Wow, I want to go down there. You know, so three or four months in, that's all I thought about. So I probably did go through some withdrawals, but didn't realize it. And I sweat out. So all the toxins, all the nicotine, all the alcohol. The first 30, 60 days, you're sweating out all these toxins. And the first day I did four miles, the second day I did five. The next day I took a zero day. Shit, zero day after nine miles, you weak bitch. And I got back on and kept on, you know, and eventually I got to where I was pulling 20, 25 miles a day. Didn't have to take zero days as much. But I was enjoying the hike itself so much that I didn't realize that I was going through that transformation until I would get off trail and I would go to resupply. Like for example, the first 700 miles, it's all desert hiking. So when I got to Kennedy Meadows, I'd lost a ton of weight, wasn't drinking, wasn't smoking. And that's when I first had that inkling when I got. into a place where could see myself in a mirror and I was like, wow, holy shit. Did you recognize yourself? I did except for all the hair and the beard. ah Usually I'm clean cut and I don't even have this for a beard. Usually it's a goatee and I'm in a suit and tie and doing my thing. ah So yeah, so it was definitely a... uh an experience but... Life changing, absolutely life changing. Every person I say, I, you know, anybody that struggles with drugs or alcohol, in my opinion, You will never find better rehab than being thrown out in the middle of the wilderness with no option or way to resupply on your booze or cigarettes. for three weeks, two, three weeks, you get through the withdrawals, you get through the whatever, you know what I mean? I would suggest it to anybody I've thought about, I would love to take a bunch of alcoholics, drug addicts, and make them hike the PCT for six months. I'm telling you. Your body does some weird shit, transformative-wise. I'm sure there was toxins and stuff that were just coming out of my body that I had no idea of, It was a healing journey, literally. which brings me all it kind of brings it full circle back to why I started this nonprofit organization hiking for home. ah and what I expect this charity to do over the next 15, 20 years. So, just to go back, on this first time you um hiked the Pacific Coast Trail, what was one of the most memorable days on hike for you? Crab tree meadows. Now keep in mind you're talking to somebody that, you he spent a lot of my life out in the wilderness, but not doing anything to this extreme. Hiking Mount Whitney, summoning 14,500 feet, highest peak in the lower 48 states, and doing it in one day, up and back in six and a half hours, was probably one of the... You feel like you accomplished something. ah And then going through just the sierras, you summit nine passes through the sierras. Did you start in San Diego or Southern California? Southern California at Campo, just outside of San Diego at the Mexican border. What do you do for water on that stretch of it? Um, you pack it. oh pack it, yeah. Because there's no natural flowing water that you can purify to drink, right? It's all probably pretty damn dry out there. There are water supply points and that's where you have to know where they're at. A lot of strategic planning on these maps here behind me. ah I go through and I can highlight where all the water resupply points are or where they should be depending on the time of season. ah The longest stretch of no water is typically going through uh Death Valley. going through that lower desert portion. The longest stretch I think is 58 miles with no water, so I gotta pack that through. You know, maybe a more pointed question, but you started, think, I don't know if I'd say it's the harder part, but there's no water, it's dry, it's hot as hell. You're 270, you're giving up the booze, you're giving up the nicotine. Did you get like, I don't know, like in the first 10 days or 14 days, were you like, what the hell am I doing? And did you want to bail or were you in it? And did it carry you through that? carried me through it, and I'll be honest with you, Bailey never entered my mind. And here's why, for me anyway. I'm a very visual person. And a lot of stuff that I do. And... The unknown, what's around the bend? What am I gonna see next? I had deer coming up to me, three feet from me, sniffing me. Bear that would stop and check me out. know, what am I doing coming through their area? The bobcats and stuff that were following me and all those things. I was always excited. for the next day, what am gonna see tomorrow? What am I gonna see today? What am I gonna deal with today? So I never had that feeling of bailing. Yeah, and that feeling of representing other people. That's true, because you were sponsored. you were, it's not like you were just going out on your own. It was, you were carrying some, in some ways carrying some burden and carrying others with you. hike. probably had I think less than 10 sponsors, but I had a couple of decent sponsors. Work was one of them, oh And so I had some people, but you guys got to remember this was before social media blew up before TikTok, Instagram, all this. So I had one platform. Facebook. OK. Well, so you said your initial inspiration was the movie and for yourself. When did you decide to make this em like a chair to bring awareness to diabetes? When did you make make that decision? Probably in 2017 when I knew I was gonna do this hike, but I knew I wanted to do it for something. I wanted it to have a meaning behind it, not just I went on a long hike. You know what I mean? And I told myself, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it for a cause, for a reason. ah It's not just about me. was my thought process. ah had a newly diagnosed type 1 diabetic, you know, kid. And I thought, why not? I'll do it for JDRF. Something that, you know, and I was just starting to learn about diabetes. And at that time we were uh going to the Children's Hospital in Phoenix. Phoenix Children's Hospital is where we were going every week and they were, you know, going through the classes and learning about diabetes and all that stuff. So it just seemed like the natural fit at the time. So you go and you do this hike for six months, this life changing, healing journey, this transformation in every way, probably physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Imagine it covered every level of your life, just the whole transformation. You get back home and realize, shit's at the fan with the kids. You need to get in there. You need to get the kids out of that situation. um Was there pushback from your ex-wife in taking three of the kids? yeah, yeah, she tried to. So what happened was while I was on trail in July of that year is when Sedona, my daughter was diagnosed with type one diabetes. In fact, I got the call on trail, happened to have service that day, was getting ready to summit a mountain. And she calls me, says, yeah, I'm in the hospital. I just got diagnosed with type one diabetes as I'm hiking for type one diabetes. Right, Wow. So, you know, that was, that hit me a little bit. had to take off the pack and, you know, console her and talk to her about it, know, to Sedona and stuff. But yeah, when I came, so while I was on trial, I didn't know it, but mom had been going for full custody, told the courts that I had abandoned the kids and disappeared. Mmm. concocted this big story to present to the courts. Well, lo and did she know, and that's where she was hiding the phone in the pop-tah, the storage and all that stuff so they didn't have a phone. The boys were going out when they'd get home from school and they'd get the phone and plug it in and they'd call me. Mmm. And I didn't even know at that point all the stuff that was going on. I just thought the boys were calling me, right? Hey, dad, we're home, you know. So this whole time we were talking the whole time. So when I came back. Day three, I found out. The court had sent me a notice or something like a 60 day or 30 day notice or something. So they were getting ready to grant her full. 100 % final decision making custody. Wow. I got a letter that day, day three. The streets still smell like piss to me because I've been in the wilderness for so long, right? So I get this letter at my office at work of all places. I think I have my maybe I have my mail forwarded there or something, but so I get this letter and I've got court the next day, eight thirty in the morning. And this is their second time trying to subpoena me to court. The first time I was still on trial. So I show up to court and at this point I go in with three lawyers and a lawyer for each kid and myself. And I walked out with custody of the boys first. But during that time when the boys, when I was on trail and the boys were with mom, they were taking pictures of the living conditions that they were. mmm And that's ultimately the judge was like, yeah, mom, she's gotten better now from my understanding, but she really got into this hoarding thing. You've seen that show Hoarders and that's what it turned into. So I got, I got him out of that situation. Um, and then eventually when I got custody of the full custody of the boys with final decision making. We came to Oregon and then my daughter, Sedona, called me six months later saying she wanted to come. So I brought her up here for a visit and then she said, I'm not going back. So I had to start the court battle all over again for her, won that. And then Jessica, my youngest, who just turned 14, I wasn't gonna try to pull, because I didn't wanna force a kid away from a parent. Yeah. So I always left it up to them. When you're ready, you come and talk to me. We'll talk. If I'm sure you're ready, then we'll make it happen. Jessica never found that spot because I think their mother realized she lost three. You know, she has a relationship with them, but they don't talk. They're not close. don't. Right. So she realized Jessica, the one who's 14 now is her last hope to, you know. So, and I'm close with all of my kids. to me, I'm like, as long as she's in good hands, she's healthy, she's being taken care of, I'm fine with it, you know. So you basically were a single dad then raising these kids because how old were the boys were? What? Twelve. They were young when they came to when he was ten or excuse me eleven and Tyler was ten And so through their middle school or junior high years or high school years, you were so how long did the battle go on where you were having to sleep against the door and make sure they stayed in? How long in I first got back from the hype. and then eventually did that all even out. Yeah, that went on for about. I think it was four months they had people coming in for four months. Yeah, and then it kind of leveled out. And then I had to go through and convince the courts to let me relocate the kids from Arizona to Oregon, away from the mother, even though I had full custody, right? Huh, again, good Lord. looking down, whichever the boys had an assigned probation officer because the state had put them on probation when they were going through all that stuff while I was gone. Yeah. funniest shit I've seen. So I go to meet this probation officer for the first time as I get off, you know, I get back from the trail day three or day four. So I'm sitting at the DHS office waiting for this guy to come in. And this black guy walks in, and I'm not exaggerating whatsoever, like he just walked in off of the boogie train. What was that dance show in the 70s? Yeah, Night Train or? What? Was it Night I can't remember. It was like American Bandstand, but it was... Where they danced around the music and shit? But I can't remember. Soul Train. Soul Train. Soul Train. So this guy, and he is the coolest dude ever, I swear to God. uh He walks in the door with the whole complete pimp outfit hat and all. like a pimp from the 70s just came in off the sidewalk in New York. I am not joking you. So I was like, all right, let's go. And he's like in his mid to late 60s. Mmm. Ah. Funny as shit. So the guy comes in, we get to talking, he's interviewed the mom already and stuff. He's like, I'm gonna get you to Oregon with those kids. Mm. This is a probation officer for juvenile court, right? He's all, I'm going to give you a 30 day approval letter to go up to Oregon to visit family. Every 25 days, I'm going to send you a new 30-day letter. Wow. until they are completely out of state custody. Okay. because they were still warded the court and all that stuff. So I'm like, okay. And I was a little like, is this really happening right now? So we go into court in Phoenix the last day, the day we're getting ready to leave to Oregon. And the guy's name is Rolf and Rolf is in there. And I'm like, hey, what's going on? And that pimp outfit worked court all the time, everything. The big round pimp purple hat and everything. Right? I was just like, what the heck, And so he shows up at court that day and he tells the Honor, yeah, they, you know, haven't been able to see family in years because of the mother. So I want to give them permission to go up to Oregon and I give them a 30 day notice. The courts were like, yeah, just monitor it, make sure everything's good. So sure as shit, every 25 days he'd send me a new email, another 30 days, until the courts released the kids into my custody full-time and got them off out of state custody. That's a very creative way for him to do that. We were his last case before he retired. And I think he... something in you. Yeah. Yeah, he knew those kids needed to go with you. Yeah. I was shocked the whole time going, can't believe this is really happening from a state official. Okay, so now you've done your hike. Are you still working for the American Fire and Safety Company? working for American Fire Equipment this entire time. And then... and you have three kids. You've done your hike and now you have three kids you're raising. Right, and we moved to Oregon. Okay, did you continue to hike during that time? Okay, so you're just raising the kids and working. wasn't a hiker, he just got on the trail for of know, but it transformed his life. Okay, but now you have to be... done small like three or four or five day hikes since then, but nothing that extreme. Right. But you've got three kids now you're raising. Yeah, so we do a lot of hiking and camping now, like small hikes, maybe five, 10 miles in type thing, you know. Right. But like you said before, you focused on the kids and work during this time. That was your focus, is getting these kids through school. And then, so where did um Hiking for Hope come from? When did that enter the picture? Well, so I was with American uh Flier Equipment for eight years and made it through three buyouts. They sold out to different companies three times in that 10 years. Now remember, I started at Hiller uh as a bill collector. That was my job, sit there and just collect on these old invoices. By the time I left Hiller, I was managing a $150 million rolling receivable, 36 offices in the United States and three offshore offices in Dubai. So in 2014, and I worked remote for 10 years from home, which gave me the opportunity to raise these kids, keep them out of trouble, get them back on track, you know what I mean? So I didn't have to go and leave anybody at home or they didn't have to come home like we did as Latchkey kids. Right? No, it's ideal situation, honestly. And it was, and I moved us out in Oregon. When we came to Oregon, we moved up on the middle of 10 acres out in the middle of nowhere. So kind of how you grew up five miles for them to get to the nearest store. back in Springfield. Yeah, well, not in Springfield, in Oak Ridge, outside of Springfield. you do the whole livestock thing like you did when you were growing up? Did you have that on your property with these with your kids? No, I didn't have time for the livestock. Up there, there's a herd of like 80 elk that would come through our yard every day. So I just sat out on my back patio and I'd watch the elk come through and every morning like clockwork. It was just really kind of getting everybody centered back to center mass. You know what I mean? get the boys into a routine, get myself into a routine, get out of the hustle and the bustle. um They could. are worlds apart, right? Phoenix area compared to Springfield, you're in nature. You're going from concrete jungle, sand, hot weather to magic. How did they acclimate? Was it a hard transition for them? To this day they said they'll never leave Oregon. Mmm, wonderful. Wonderful. No, so they're happy. Yeah, because they were all born and raised young in Arizona. And when they came out to Oregon for the first time, they were like in awe, just complete the mountains, the trees, you know, ah everybody having yards instead of gravel in their front yard, know, no. Yeah. They uh They're hooked. They'll never leave. They love it here. have you taken them hunting, fishing, all the things you did as a kid? That's wonderful. Our garage is just full of camping gear, fishing gear, hunting gear. You've come full circle with your kids. now that you bring it up, I've never thought about it that deeply, but yeah, I guess so, Yeah. you said you worked for American Fire and Safety, you said eight years? ah Yeah, well for eight years and then they sold out to a company called Johnson. materials or something like that. It's another ah fire safety company ah who came in and they bought American fire equipment. Or actually, I take that back. American fire sold out to a company called Hiller. Mm. Hiller bought, operate and owned the company for two years and then they bought or they sold again. And then they sold the third time to Johnson in. Twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three. So from. Yeah, from twenty sixteen. Or twenty twenty or twenty fifteen up until. that point or this point company had changed ownership three times. and you survived all those three. survived all three of those cuts. In February, the new company Johnson, who bought out Hiller and kept the name, ah finally came in and cut all the executive managers from the CEO, CFO, COO down to myself. That was in February of 2024. so recent. So the day that they uh laid me off or gave me my walking papers and cashed out all my retirement and all that stuff, I started, I took my retirement and I invested it into Hiking for Hope and said I'm gonna open a nonprofit organization and I'm gonna spend the rest of my life hiking all over the planet. to bring awareness for diabetes. and other other charities. So this one is for diabetes research and mental health awareness. I'm planning a 16,000 mile hike that circumfers the US in 2029 for breast cancer and spousal abuse awareness. And we're kicking around adding a third one on that. So it'll be broken up into three sections for each one for each. It's just different charities in general. So when does this first one start? So, it's already started. I stepped foot on the Pacific Crest Trail for my second through hike of the PCT on March 1st with my two sons. Yes. they went with you. That's awesome. So from March till you must have just gotten off recently then? Ha! I told you there was a lot more to this story. So we stepped foot March 1st, Campo, at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail, heading northbound at 4.30 in the afternoon. All excited. Everybody's got the gear. I 18 months promoting and sponsoring this hike. Brought in over 20 uh national and global sponsors. Some of our sponsors include Columbia Sportswear, GoPro, RecPak, Osprey Bags, PAX, Big Agnes, Dexcom. So we've got a ton of sponsors and we're still uh We're right in the middle of our 2025 uh sponsorship campaign right now until I leave. So we're bringing on more sponsors. uh Bass Pro Shops and yeah, just a ton of them. so um we step on trail March 1st and I leave my vehicle at a buddy's house who lives in El Cajon, California in Southern Cal. Mm-hmm. He gets us to the terminus and we head out. First day, ah we hike for six miles in the dark. We set up camp. Great, we're on the PCT, you know. I'm excited for the boys because I get to show them all the cool shit that I seen last time and they're pumped and excited. And we're heading to Howser Creek, mile 20, first spot. Howser Creek is what you want to get to. So some people do it in the first day. We get there our first or the second day we get to the bottom of Howser Creek. Totally just get slammed on by rain, right? Part of the course, whichever, our tents get flooded out. So we have to dry out our pack and some of our gear, get our gear, rain gear on, get everything covered up. Day two, we get heading northbound on the trail. Everything's going fine. ah Our first weekend, we're getting close to Julian, Southern Cal, for the first couple of weeks. So we get to Julian and a winter storm hits and drops about foot of snow in the first two nights that we're there because we get to Julian so that we can resupply right we did more food and pick up a resupply box and stuff like that so ah we had already gone through a couple of small little towns that we did some stopovers and help the community with some community cleanup stuff so we go to Julian and So we're there for like three days getting hit by the snowstorm. And we're at that VFW hall in Julian camped. Our tents are pitched underneath this eave on a deck that they had. And so at we're getting some good food out of the restaurant, you know, there. Waiting for the snow to stop and start to warm up. The snow starts to let up. We're getting some rains that's helping melt some of the snow so we get back on trail. We're leaving Julian headed to Idlewild. And we get about eight miles from Idlewild, so halfway in between. Mm-hmm. It's more than halfway, but we're eight miles from getting to Idlewild. Beautiful day out, sun's gorgeous out. I'm about a mile and a half, two miles ahead of the boys, right? So I uh stopped to have lunch, wait for them to catch up, do some recording, loving the fact all these new social media platforms I can go on and share the hike with. And... So I do a bit, eat lunch, I'm like, God, where are these guys at? So I finally, text them, where are you guys at? I'm fucking eight, I'm ready to leave, you know, let's go. Oh, well they had stopped about a mile and a half too, behind me. And so they stopped and ate lunch. So I'm like, okay, I'll take some time to catch up with them. Okay, so I look at the maps, look at the weather maps, everything's good, it's gonna be a gorgeous rest of the day. So boys, catch up with me. We start hiking mile and a half in eight miles from. out a while and all of sudden we start seeing a little bit of mist coming through the mountains, right? I'm like, oh, maybe we're up in the clouds, guys. This is cool. We're like 9000 feet up in altitude. And then all of sudden this storm comes through. And I'm not talking about just a little drizzle outside storm. 80 mile an hour wind. my gosh. sleep sideways, literally sideways. Those, I should say 80 mile an hour gust winds, sustainable at 60 to 70. Crazy. Enough to hurt. Yeah. to hurt, that shit hurt, that ra- that- that freezing rain hitting you? Yeah. Yeah, that's painful. we're in a spot, we're right where there's no coverage. Right? So I'm going, okay, let's go further up trail and try to see if we can find coverage. So we start heading up the trail. Tyler's literally getting blown over on the ground. Now he's 5'5", 135 pounds with a 60 pound pack. So he's getting blown over. So I'm like, OK, this shit's getting crazy, ah We'll pitch a tent, everybody gets inside the tent, we'll wait out the storm. Great idea. So we find a big tree. There's a picture, there's a video of it actually on our TikTok and our social media. So there's a picture of Tyler, a video, you see him and he's got a face mask on and stuff and then he starts, and you see me walking through the storm, right? And it's just, grrr. So we grabbed somebody's tent. can't remember who is. We tried to pitch this tent. The storm's so bad we can't get the tent pitched. We can't get it open. We can't get it staked down. And it ah breaks the buckles on the tent cover, so we lose the cover to the tent. Oh. And the wind's just picking up harder and it's getting harder and worse. So I'm like, what do do? So you know what a footprint is, right? To your tent. No, I don't. Okay, a footprint is a piece of tent material that lays on the ground that you put your tent on to keep water. It's like a barrier. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, now the shit's getting cold. It's getting really cold. So the tent blew off. I'm not going to drag out another tent and fight that shit. So I grabbed the footprint and we all three get under it and we pull this foot. kept this footprint over us to get out of the rain, the sleet, and the snow, right? And by this, now it's dark. Oh, jeez. And we're holding this thing over us, sitting on our knees, really only enough room for two people, but I got my ass under that thing. And we lighted jet boil in there for heat. What's a jet boil? The thing I have. OK, OK. Little stove. OK, OK. So I'm like, we're drenched at this point. We didn't even have a chance to put on rain gear. I mean, this storm came in out of nowhere. 30 seconds, we're in the middle of this fucking. At 9,000 feet. at 9,000 feet up, like 8,800 feet. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay, everybody, you know, sit on the edge of the footprint to keep it down or it's just gonna blow up on right. So we get situated. Got the jet boil lip. We're soaking wet. So we're starting to dry off now the front of us from this jet boil. So I'm like, okay. We run out of in the jet boil. So I'm like, okay, so now the kids, now the boys are, they're shaking, like literally. And I'm like, it's fucking getting cold. They're wet. I'm wet. I'm starting to get the shakes. Last thing we need is hypothermia to set in. Yeah. So luckily we have no phone service, but with the new iPhones you have satellite. We were able to pick up a satellite signal and call 911 and SARS came in and plucked us out. Wow. to search and rescue, they can't fly in. There's no way. Yeah, it's too windy. Yeah. Four and a half hours they hike up in this storm to find us. Amazing. They find us, put this big heat tent thing over us and all this shit, right? ah And then they hike out with our packs. We tried to get them to let us hike our packs out. We didn't want to be pictures on camera. We were joking about it. And they're like, yeah, sorry. And they hiked out with their own packs. So they had a pack on the back, a pack on the front. So we hiked out. They hiked us out. So we get to the bottom. Sheriff's departments down there, ambulance, all that stuff. Check us out. Boys have uh light or beginning signs of uh frostbite on their toes. uh Joey's got some frostbite setting in on his ring finger. ah And they're like, yeah, you guys are going into hypothermia. You're lucky they found you when you did, because we would have been pulling out bodies in the. Wow, that was so smart to call 911. Well, at first I was just thinking, we'll just sit here and wait and wait it out, right? And I thought we were going to be able to until we lost the fuel in the canister. We burned up the fuel. if you were solo hiking, you might've even waited it out, but you had your boys with you. So that changed. about that last night, me and the boys, was like, I would have probably waited it out. oh I would have, because I would have found a spot somewhere to pitch that tent, you know? Or I would have just hiked out. But what freaked me out is when I seen Tyler get blown over, on the left of us, we've got a mountain with a break. On the right of us, it's cliffs. I can't have him get blown over on, you know. So, and then when we run out, we ran out of the fuel in the canisters when I decided, yeah, we got to call SARS and get somebody up here. So they come and pluck us out, hike us down. We get cleared by the ambulance. We get into, Idlewild at like four in the morning. Sheriff gets us a hotel. finds a hotel that will open up a room for us and stuff when we get in, right? So then I'm worried about the boys because their toes are starting, they're getting, they're not black yet, but they're getting that yellow. They're real sensitive. They couldn't shower. The hot water was hurting and burning Pete. Joey's lost feeling in his finger. And keep in mind, Tyler's a type 1 diabetic. Believe it or not, his insulin did not freeze through this whole time. That's amazing. I was about to ask you that. That's amazing. I'm like, how did maybe insulin doesn't freeze? I don't know. Right. So never had any diabetes issues. His pump worked the whole time. So we get into Idlewild. The next day we go get breakfast. Still waiting for stuff to dry out. They're still dealing with the finger thing and the toes. So we decide, I'm like, all right, we're going to send you back home. I'm going send you back home, get that stuff taken care of. Tyler needs to go to his endo appointment, let her know what happened, make sure she's all good to go. And we'll meet up in Big Bear, right? Which is about so at this point we are. It's over 160 miles in. Big Bear is 270 miles. So I've got about a little over 100 miles to go solo. Does the trail take you over the peak of Big Bear? Or does it go around the base? Yeah. Okay. it kind of goes halfway up and around. With San Jacinto, it goes around the base or you can do an eight mile hike to the summit. Okay. So we're in Idlewild, San Santo. And so I send them home. It sucked. That was one of the hardest things to do. But. They probably didn't want to go either, right? They did, but they didn't, but they were like shit. A month out on trail for them was a long time. True, true. That's a shaking experience too to be caught in the woods like that and have to get rescued. Yeah, that freaked them out. Yeah, I would think so. Even at 20 and 21, they were pretty. And it was my, it was Joey, my oldest, his 21st birthday. March 17th, March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, we get plucked out by church and rescue. So I told him, said, you'll, you'll forever, you'll forever remember your 21st birthday. So we get to Idlewild, so I send them home. Mm-hmm. and they come home to take care of their stuff. They had a fun little trip back. They got to take the trains and the buses and people are asking about them because they have their packs and all this gear, you know, they had a church group that bottom dinner and you know, they just had a fun time getting back home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. As my ass is out here in the middle of nowhere. Here's where shit gets real. This comes back to your question. So we got onto the trail marked first. All this has happened in the first. three weeks. Hit by two major storms, one we got plucked out of, the other one in Julian. A lot of rain, lot of bitching and pissed off because the weather sucks so bad. Because in 2018, I had two days of rain in six months. That's gonna say it doesn't rain a whole lot. There's not a lot of precipitation in Southern California. Yeah. we had left three weeks earlier this time than I did last time. So we're cruising, getting wet, lot of shit. Me and my oldest son, him and I are like two peas in a pod. So we're a lot alike. So sometimes we clash, right? So I'm getting pissed off because he's out hiking me. I'm like, slow your ass down. Where are going? You don't know what to do. And he's like, screw you. And I'm like, fuck you. And then we meet up three hours later, five-five, good job. And then my younger son Tyler, who's 20, he's the total opposite. He's a very laid back, no drama, just want to do my thing. Yeah, me and Joey, we're always the loud ones. Didn't you tell? So I send them back and I stay another night in Idlewild at a campground and I decide I'm gonna go hit San Jacinto and then continue on up to Big Bear. Now granted in 2018, I was unable to hike or summit San Jacinto. uh I didn't have my snow gear with me that year either. ah What else happened? and I had torn a, uh what the hell do they call it? Hiker band in my knee. So in 2018. So I'm like, I'm going to do San Jacinto this time, right? Pissed off because the boys aren't with me, but that's okay. So I get back on trail, I'm heading to San Jacinto and I'm like, yeah, get to fucking finally summit this thing. And I start heading to the summit. getting into some snow. Nothing too bad, I can handle it. snow starts to get a little deeper. starting to warm up so that crust on the top layer of the ice is melting. So I'm starting to post hole. Next thing I know, I'm like three miles, three and a half miles from the summit and I'm post-holing up to my crotch. Every step between my knee and my crotch. So I'm post-holing like three feet, three and a half feet every step. Well, when you're post-holing like that, what you're doing is you're compacting that ice on the bottom of that step, right? During the afternoon when it's melting and it's cold, it's warmer. So now it's starting to get a little slick. So I decided, okay, all of my snow gear, my crampons, my ice axe, uh my micro spikes are all in my resupply box for the Sierra. So as much as I wanted to summit, I'm like pissed off. thinking this is the second time I have been able to get to the summit of this mountain. but I'm just not, I'm I'm seeing hikers come down in full winter gear. And I'm going up there and fucking looking like I'm walking, you know, summer gear. So I'm like, okay, I gotta turn around. So I turn around, start coming down the mountain. I'm fine, it's a little slippery. I'm sliding, using my trekking pole. And I hit this one spot and I just slip right onto my back. So now I'm on my back. on my pack like a damn turtle with my legs and arms up in the air. But it's at a real steep incline. I'm hitting this dim... So I'm sliding down basically 200 feet down this mountain and I can't get over... And I can't get myself over. The pack won't let me get myself over onto my stomach, right? The bottles, water bottles on the sideways and stuff are keeping me from flipping over. and you're sliding the whole time. sliding on my back. And I don't have an ice axe to slow my speed. So the only thing I've got are my trekking poles, which now I wish I wouldn't have used. Well, yeah, well, what happened was that's where the trekking poles came into play because I'm sliding. And the problem is I'm trying to get my feet in, but I'm up on this pack. just to give you an idea. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. 70 pound pack full of gear. When it's on, it exceeds my head. So I'm riding down the back of it, not this pack, but a pack just like it. So I'm down and I'm right at this big ass boulder that's like the size of my living room. my goodness. So the only thing I could think of, cause I didn't want to hit that fricking boulder, right? And the part that I'm sliding on, it's kind of goes around the rock. Yeah. ah So I grabbed my trekking poles and I tried to block myself from hitting the rock. I put up the trekking pole, it blocks my face, but I bust my teeth out on the trekking pole. oh no it busts out, one of my front teeth gets busted out lengthwise, so I have a tooth. The other tooth gets busted out at the gum line and I break out eight teeth. Oh my god. But at the same time, hitting that rock slowed me down enough to where I was able to take the trekking poles and dig them into the snow. I knew what to do. Just fucking dig these things down in the snow as hard as I can. Now that I look back on it, I wish I would have done that because it tore both my rotator cuff. Oh. So the weight, 65 pound bag, me being 200 pounds at the time, at this time. So 265 pounds sliding and I use these stretchy pulls, they stop my arms and everything else keeps going. my goodness. In my right one's still torn. But it flipped me over on my stomach. And I stopped. I was just like, holy shit, what the hell just happened? I assume you're bleeding. yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's blood in the snow. Because the mouth bleeds a lot. So. I sit there for a minute and I start cleaning myself up with the snow. Yeah. Luckily, and I, this is the weird shit, so I was sore. in Idlewild so I was eating my vitamin I, my ibuprofen. On the trail they call it vitamin I because you eat it like Skittles, right? So I was eating ah ibuprofen and extra-strength Tylenol like Skittles. And then with the frozen snow and I was cleaning my face up and my busted up lips and crap. It numbed my mouth. So everything was numb. So there wasn't a whole lot of pain. was just it looked worse. What it felt right. So and my legs are just shard up that snow. On raw skin is like glass, I'm telling you. There's pictures in my TikTok. My legs are just freaking trapped. I tried to post uh one of my face, but TikTok keeps taking it down. Yeah, they're temperamental. So I get to the base, so I hike out down San Jacinto, down, and if you've ever been to San Jacinto, there's a big parking lot and there's a park area, a picnic area and all that stuff. So I hike out, come off the trail and I come into that area. Not a stolen site, right? Nobody around. So I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'm gonna hike 15 miles to the I-10 corridor where the PCT comes across the freeway or goes under the freeway to get to the Whitewater Preserves. That's my plan. So I start road hiking to get down from the San Jacinto Recreation Area. One car coming up the road. telling you, God's on my side. You guys have no fucking clue right now. So this couple comes up in this rental car thing and they see me and I've got blood and I'm hiking. Just want to get away from that mountain. Thankful I didn't break a bone. So they're like, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, I can explain to them. said, we're here. They were from Florida and they were sightseeing waiting to catch a plane back home. luck. So no, I was, they just stopped this guy looks like he was still it's like a state park or federal park area. So there's not a road to it. There's no traffic, no one to hit, you know, just a lonely hiker coming out of the woods bloodied up hiking down this big road. So they come up, they're coming up. So they stopped, there's a picture of me with them. getting a selfie with them. And so they're like, hey, we can give you a ride wherever you want to go. We're going to be going right. And it happened to be going right by where I was going on the I-10. Because they're going to go back to the airport. So I'm like, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you. So they give me a ride 15 miles to the I-10 corridor, the Pacific Crest Trail. There's a circle K there and a couple of truck stops, know, stops and that's about it. So they get me there, I get cleaned up at the gas station some more, change my shirt. And I'm at a, I think it's a Circle K or something like that at the I-10. Deciding where I'm gonna go and what I'm gonna do next. So I'm like, okay, we'll get back on trail, get over to the corridor and I can decide what I'm gonna do there, cause it's right under the overpass of the 10. So I get there, right? pitch camp just outside of the overpass in this uh wash area. So I pitched my tent there for the night. Naturally, because I've got my headlamp on and I'm in my tent and shit. A bunch of people come up and start circling me in their ATVs. Yeah, and I can hear them. I'm in my tent. So I'm yelling. Just a hiker, just a hiker, you know? And I could hear someone else talking to someone else on another ATV and they're yelling back at him. It's a hiker, it's a hiker. And then they took off and disappeared. So they must have thought I was like a... I don't know, maybe a migrant or something, you know, jumping border type thing or something. Yeah, but then when they realized I was just a hiker, they took off and left me alone. they... screwed with me for two hours. I mean, I was like in the dark. yeah. So the next morning I'm in my tent, do my little video for my Dexcom sponsor and I go to the bridge, right? And this is like a first kind of major stop where hikers will stop. People put food out there for the hikers and resupply stuff, water, and you They have a big spot where you sign your name. I was number three on the trail. Third person for the season. So I signed the thing, snag a banana, get some water, know, chill for a while. And then I leave them. you in pain though from your injuries to your mouth? I'm eating all this ibuprofen and Tylenol, so I'm not, I can't really eat anything. Can't bite into anything. So I'm really eating like oatmeal and top ramen, stuff that I can kind of easily get down. And drinking water like a madman. So then the next day, so I stayed under that overpass for two days. And then the third day, I finally hiked out, got back on trail. And then I started heading to the Whitewater Preserves. Because I remember the Whitewater Preserve from 2018. And I was like, can camp there for a couple of days. It's like I'm 110 miles from Big Bear. Whitewater Preserve at the Ranger Station is like, I'm gonna say 48, 50 miles from where I'm at or something about halfway through, Mm-hmm. So I hike to the Ranger Station in the Whitewater Preserve, no problem. But fuck, every time I stopped hiking, this heartburn was just kicking my ass. Major, major heartburn. As long as I was trucking, I was good. So I get to the preserve, set up tent, feeling really lethargic, but you know, just figured, yeah, a lot of shit's gone on the last week, you know. Kids are not here. So I stay at the Whitewater Preserve for two or three days. And God, at night I couldn't sleep. Miss Hartburn was just kicking my ass, right? So I'm eating Tums, ibuprofen, extra strength Tylenol, like crazy. handfuls. Every time I try to go back to sleep or go into my tent to lay down, heartburn would just kick my ass. I'd get back up. I'd walk this thing at two in the morning in this ranger park just to keep the heartburn down, right? So finally leave the Whitewater Preserve ranger station, packed up, heading to Big Bear. 70 miles to Big And so after a couple of days, I just start getting this like weird feeling, like paranoia shit, right? And I'm like, why am I feeling like paranoid and kind of out of it and lost and shit? Well, I don't know. So I make it to Big Bear, five days later, 70 miles, five days I get to Big Bear. So I already knew my miles were down and I'm already losing mileage. But it's been a crazy first 40 days, right? 35 days. Nothing but snow, rain, sleet, hypothermia, everything with the boys, them having to go back. So ah I get back on trail and I start heading to Big Bear. And it takes me five days to get to Big Bear. Finally hike into Big Bear. Can't find a place to pitch. another storms coming through. So they don't open up the local parks or camp spots yet. They hold off on opening. Yeah, I was like, are you freaking kidding me? This is pissing me off. So I'm like, I'll go stay in a Motel 6. Well, they had a Motel 6 in Big Bear. That was the only place I could find that could get a place or a room. So I get there naturally. Motel 6. It's under renovation TVs don't work, you know, none of this. But I'm just, okay, I got a bed, right? But man, this heartburn is seriously guys like never had heartburn like this before. And I thought it was because I was eating all the top ramen and the oatmeal from my teeth being busted out. Yeah. Day two in the hotel, paranoia really sets in. I feel like a tweaker or something. I'm just like peeking out the windows. like, I can't get comfortable. I can't lay down. I'm just like, what the hell's going on? So I'm talking to my mom and she's all, Wes, you need to get into a doctor. You need to go see somebody. You fell. Just make sure everything's good. So I finally agree. I'm like, yeah, you're probably right. But this is where I know now I was pretty messed up. What do I do? I hitchhike to Sacramento, jump on a bus, and come back home to Oregon. So you left the trail. left Big Bear, left Trail, went to Big Bear, you know, from Trail, left Big Bear, instead of going to the hospital in Big Bear. Oh, yeah. real rhyme reason why, just again, I'm out there, I'm not all there. I go and hitchhike to Sacramento and get on a train back to Oregon. Two day travel. And then did you go to the hospital in Oregon? after I got home two days later. To get from Big Bear to Sacramento though, that's gotta be at least what, five, seven hundred miles or something? Let's soak out a no-cal. It was a 42, 42 hour commute. I know that. Wow. Jeez. So what? take bus and train to get back home. So was like 42 hours to get from Sacramento back home on bus and What was going on when you went to the hospital? So I get home, walk in the front door, all the kids are like, dad, you're home, what's up? Hey, so I lay here for two days going, God, this heartburn is just kicking my ass. I live two miles from the nearest hospital. So I walked to the hospital. Don't ask me why. Got four cars in the driveway here. Right? There's something about that. Yeah. it. Yeah. So I hiked to McKinsey Willamette Hospital, walk in the ER, tell them, you know, I got, I don't know what's wrong, got the severe heartburn. So they check my vitals, tell me to go sit down. I don't even get my ass in the waiting seat and they call me back. So I go up to the counter like, no, you need to go in the back. You're having a heart attack right now. You've been having a heart attack for the last six to seven days. They can see it on the, the scan monitor thing or whatever. Yeah. EKG. So they don't, they run me right into the emergency room, stick a stent in my wrist, into my heart. And so I asked the doctor, said, what kept me from. dying out there for the last six days. Hiking, you know, I was only pulling at that point 10 to 15 mile days. And he goes, more than likely, he said, your artery is 97 % clogged. More than likely that extreme hiking was forcing the blood through that artery, which kept me alive. I said, well, what about on the train? He goes, because you were so relaxed, the heart could go into, Like it almost tried to preserve itself type of thing. like a hibernation Yeah, the heart rate slowed way down. The heartburn wasn't as bad. uh Does that cause paranoia? That's what I was just thinking. I didn't know it until after the fact I started doing research, right? Sure as shit. Heart attack, common to have people to get PTSD, which I didn't have, uh paranoia, schizophrenia type of symptoms and stuff. There's a list of like eight or 10 symptoms. I didn't know either. uh get into the hotel room and start tweaking and looking out the curtains and shit thinking, you know, paranoia state, that's probably uncanny for you. I would assume you're probably. Yeah. I'm. I knew something wasn't right because I was in that paranoid. I was like, why am I so paranoid? So, and this wasn't related to the fall. This is an issue with your heart that would have happened no matter what was going on. It just happened that you had all these happened because of the fall. And here's why. Because when we chronologically went back seven days, was right at about the time that I was at the ICE 10 corridor. Mmm. So it may not have been directly like from the fall, but I think maybe the stress from the fall or something like that may have triggered it. Who knows? Who Who knows? I'm not a doctor by any means, but. No, but that could have saved your life in a way because you were 97 % blocked. So there's a chance at any time you could have had a heart attack, right? So hiking through it maybe saved your life from just having a massive heart attack. That's what the doctor believes. He said that was the only assumption he could come up with. Because he said, we can see where you went back. He said, looks between six and seven days, you started having a light heart attack and it got worse when I was in the Whitewater Preserve, when it was like on my knees, heartburn, right? So and I had those symptoms. for two weeks after the stint. And then I woke up one morning, two weeks after they put the stint in and all that stuff, it was like someone just turned alive and everything was normal. It's fine. So when did that happen? No, I know. You started March 1st and then when did you arrive back in Oregon? like the around April 7th, I think the first week of April. So just a little over a month, you had all these things happen. 40 days. That's crazy. And here's why 40 days, 40 nights. Let's think about this for a minute. So. From a spiritual standpoint, you know, I've always been a believer, but I was not the most. didn't practice it a lot. I think this was a spiritual awakening for me as well. um To hype for seven days while having a heart attack, being plucked out of the wilderness by search and rescue and not losing any limbs. 40 days and 40 nights of hiking to get to Big Bear. Coming back home. Going through, so I got all the, so the first month I was here, I was going through the heart issue, getting the teeth pulled out, told them, said, just take them all now, might as just do it now, right? Take them out. And then, oh, and then my primary PCP physician doing all her stuff in the labs. And I've had every poke and prod you can imagine now. Um And then I prayed on it for four months daily, all day, every day. Am I supposed to be doing this? God give me if this is not what I am meant to be doing. Give me a sign. Show me something. I've never seen. I never claim to see I've ever seen Jesus or God or have had a spiritual phenomenon or anything like that, you know. And then about. Two months ago, when I was ready, I was gonna give up the hype. Maybe three months ago, I was ready to give up the whole thing. I'm like, you know what? Just not meant to be. I'll do it some other time, you know, on my own time, whatever. Change my focus. and I was sitting outside going through my phone in the dark. It happened to look up and as clear as I'm looking at you guys right now, all I see in the sky is my dad's face and he's smiling. No movement, not saying nothing, just him smiling, looking down on him. It's clear as freaking day. And I'm just looking like, Dad. And then I see the face of Jesus come from behind him. And I just feel this warmth around my body like a blanket. oh Like a blanket. And I just get a nod. and they disappear. And I find myself in my front yard on my hands and knees crying and shit and... And then the next day, all these doors start opening again, more sponsors. oh Media management company comes on out of the blue at no charge to help promote all these things in on Mike. He wants me to read scripture on trail as I record this hike every morning and every night and promote. diabetes research and mental health awareness in between. My job, my mission is to spread his word and represent the people that I'm hiking for and. Try to make an impact. Beautiful. That's absolutely beautiful. that's where I'm at now. now it's October and I'm pushing to get back on trail between February, no later than March 1st, possibly January. So we're working out the logistics on that right now. What I'm watching right now are the weather patterns. I'll get back on trail. I think at Big Bear, thought about starting fresh from the trailhead again, but I've got 300 miles in. Pick up from Big Bear, I've still got 11,700 miles to go. So, ah not wanting to deal with that issue again that early in the season, or carrying all that snow gear. So I'll be getting on, haven't quite pinpoint the date yet, but somewhere between February and March, I'll be heading back to Big Bear, getting on trail. But I think the other reason why things have come out the way that they did is I didn't complete the work that I was supposed to before we left the first time. Because I left with a lot of things. Uncomplete and left open ah in the sense that I've been working to put together a four season mini series documentary of this hike and finding the producers and the production companies and the people involved to help bring that all together and make happen. ah It's been. A chore because we're a new nonprofit we opened in twenty twenty four. ah So we really. ah focus on people that are supporting us and volunteering their time and things like that. So now we finally were able to build out our board of directors, all volunteers. We got our attorneys on board now. We've got our media management company that's in play. ah They've already started. They've been in our social media platforms for the last 48 hours starting to do their thing. For now, I feel like once we can conclude and wrap up finding ourselves a producer in a production house, I can then get back on trail. We're looking at about 80 to 100 terabytes of footage. Some of us are to be able to edit it, put it all together. and then put it into this four season docu-series format. That's amazing. I'm so excited to watch that. I'll watch it. Yeah, that's going to be so cool. stuff. Yeah, yeah. In fact, when it's ready to go, if you want to come back on to promote it, let us know. Yeah. absolutely. would definitely ask you guys to check us out and follow. Yeah, I think we do follow you on TikTok. I'll make sure we're following you on everything. I saw you on your stream not too long ago. Yeah, but I'll make sure. um I thought so. Did you put up a post? What's that? Hiking probably? Maybe I thought you were on social media. yeah, not in person, but I I saw you on social media and Eugene. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, probably. OK, yeah, I've been hiking through the university and stuff on the weekends with a bat. It's part of my therapy because when I when I fell, I had herniated disc, torn rotator cuffs, the teeth that got busted out and then that heart attack after that. Surprise, I'm still... alone, right? That statement alone, the herniated disc, the rotator cuffs, and a heart attack. Busted And the teeth, yeah. I know, right? But I'm freaking pumped and excited to get back on trail. So what's going to be interesting is I've talked to a couple of producers, one flaked out, know, people get interest and then they disappear. But it's how to. They gotta recreate that first 266 miles. Mm-hmm. What you could drive to the start, maybe, you know, drive to different spots and catch little. And do you have any footage just from things that you and your sons recorded that during that time? Yeah, just use and that was narrating what went on. And if you want to use anything from this this podcast, too, if that helps you, you can have access to it. no, you know what? You guys just bringing me on and let me tell my story and helping me get that word out is huge. I'll be honest with my goal right now. uh Buzz media is like probably going, yeah, right. This guy's smoking crack because when I first entered disagreement with them, they want to know how many followers am I trying to gain? And I'm like, I'm like a couple million. What are you talking about? And literally. So our affiliate partners include American Diabetes Association. Mm-hmm. know, we've got national and worldwide brand partners and sponsors on this project. And we're about to increase the ante with Garmin, North Face, GoPro is already on. We got Columbia. Have you guys seen any of our event shirts? So I'll send you guys out some. You'll have to send me your address. I'll send you guys out some shirts. This was our last shirt. It doesn't have all the sponsors on it. There are merchandisers adding everybody else on it, it's got a little going there. then we, yeah, this, yeah, yeah. So we got Ultra Footwear, they sponsored us with 70 pairs of shoes. Sawyer came in with all of the water filtration ah systems. Columbia with the hiking gear. Johnson Outdoor, who also owns Jetboil. Yeah, so we're pretty excited about the sponsors and we're just going into our second sponsorship campaign for this hike since I'm here. I'm like might as well bring on more sponsors and get more... so when you're starting back, it's just this one's the Pacific Coast Trail, that's what this one's going to be. And then you said that's for diabetes, mental health and to spread the word scripture. for mental health awareness. mental health awareness and then you said the next one is going to be breast cancer and domestic violence awareness. What hike is that going to be? That's in 2029. That's a sick. be the Pacific Crest Trail or is that going to be a different? Okay. that that's a 16,000 mile height that circumference the US. Okay. Okay. trails that match up to each other. So this particular hike that I'm currently doing right now, I'm on the Pacific Crest Trail. Once I get to Canada, 2650 miles, I jump over to uh Wyoming and hike the Continental Divide down Wyoming, Montana, uh Idaho, Colorado, down to New Mexico. And then I fly out to Georgia from there. and hike 14 states on the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. And then I hike from Maine 3,500 miles of all freeway and concrete hiking back from Maine to Oregon 3,500 miles. And that's this one that you're starting like in January, February, March time. How long? it's a continuous hike, 12,000 miles, and it's going to take me 18 to 24 months to complete. So the fact that what I'm what I'm clicking into right now is the timeline because the three high the three trails alone. If I can complete those in 12 months, that's called the Triple Crown. Less than 20 people have done a Triple Crown. Mm-hmm. 8,000 miles, all three trails in a 12 month period. Adding the 3,500 miles onto the tail end of that is gonna be another six months of pavement pounding back home. So do you start the Pacific Crest Trail first? Because you have to map out the weather. That's your biggest issue, right? Like I know people do the AT, they start, I forget when they start, but they try to time it. So they start in Georgia when the last snowfall happens, right? Or a little. do, and I'm similar in that sense, but because of the... The massive miles that I have to hike on this thing. Most people can do like say the Appalachian Trail in about five months, five to six months. You got two years of hiking. Chances of me completing the whole hike in 18 months are gonna be slim. I think it'll be closer to 24 months. Just because I have over 30 off trail interviews with television stations and radio stations that I have to do. Good Morning America, the morning show. um and Fox and Friends in New York. the Appalachian Trail comes about 40 miles from New York City. So I'll have to get off trail there, go do some shows. And then when I finished the Appalachian Trail, I hiked back through Jersey and New York, coming back to Oregon. And I'll be doing shows along the way through there. So, and the chances are I'm expecting that that will increase as I am on trail. Right. I'll be carrying on the 3500 miles back from Maine to Oregon. I'll be carrying a American Diabetes Association flag and a hiking for hope flag. So people build a recognize me, see me on the side of the freeway, all that crap. But really, it's garnering just to gain as many viewers and followers as I possibly can gain on this initiative and promoting diabetes research and awareness and mental health awareness. Especially I think right now our country we are in a mental health crisis right now coming out of COVID. We're seeing it on the news on a daily. So this hike first started out just as for diabetes research and awareness. uh I added mental health to the objective two months ago. because the amount of mental health issues we're seeing on TV and all the craziness that's just going on in general. especially uh for young men. yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I think that's wonderful that you're addressing that because it's talked about. mean, thankfully, the younger generations talk about mental health way more openly than Gen X. We weren't even allowed to give it space. Like that was a bad word, right? We weren't supposed to talk about that. But Gen Z, they talk about it as openly as anything and it's a beautiful thing. But I still think the aspect when it comes to young men is not given enough attention. No, I agree with you 100%. And the other thing I noticed too is on trails, I'm not the normal bird that hikes these trails. A lot of these trails are hiked by... People that, know, nature lovers tend to be more left leaning, I would say. I am more of a, I would consider myself not left or right, but right leaning. So I have different thoughts than most people on trail. Like the leave no trace, I'm a stickler. Yeah. You know, leave no trace. You don't leave shit. You don't know if I've been there not when I leave a spot. You know what I mean? Well, that type of thing. When I set my mind to something, it's just that stubborn. I guess, military type of way of thinking I'm going to do it one way or another, get there one way if it takes me a week or a month or whatever. And so I take that same approach. Now, the difference with. This hike is the ultimate goal is. After I complete this hike, I'm opening up a gear shop here in Eugene. The only gear shop here right now is REI. The other their biggest competitor closed their doors up two years ago called Bat Country. Bat Country closed up their shop. I am not a fan of REI. uh They're OK, but yeah. They don't they're expensive. Yeah, most definitely. ah And the ultimate goal is to take underserved people in our community and take them out on the Pacific Crest Trail. I live 30, 40 minutes from the trail and can take people out on trail so that they can say they hike the PCT. They experienced a through hike, whether it's a section hike for two weeks with someone with autism or. You know, what were we looking at? was the other one? There's autism. all different types of mental health awareness, know, different advocacy that we can support. Well, you even said it yourself. You said if you have anything going on in your life, hike the Pacific Crest Trail and it'll fix it. It's a healing journey. And I think just giving access to people who would never even consider doing something like that and giving them the opportunity to possibly change their life or give them hope, you know, even if it's something as simple as helping them find meaning again. I mean, it's just so important. So the fact that you're That's your end goal once you're done with this first journey. That's an amazing thing. And hopefully, um you'll continue to get sponsorships to support that. And that's the goal, because I've got a business development background in finance, all that crap that we talked about earlier. So when I look at something like this, I look at it a project and I say, so what's involved? What do I need to do to start the project? And what's the end goal? What am I doing this for? What's the reason behind it? Yeah. And the reasoning behind it is I want to be able to get as many people out on trail as possible, like you said, to experience to have their own self reflection, their own journey. ah And really promote that aspect to healing, whether it's from alcoholism or drug addiction or. mental health awareness or autism or you know other things just because someone has a physical barrier doesn't mean they still can't hike maybe it's not 20 miles a day maybe it's five you know what I mean and just doing that I think gives a person a certain level of self satisfaction of being able to give back and so that's my plan and to basically have my gear shop, take people out on the trail that want to get out on the trail and experience it, and just kind of do that until I am buried. I think that's wonderful. Another section of people being a Gen Xer, um Gen X women as they're heading midlife a lot, they're going through a full self-discovery and for the first time in their lives, it's where they're not necessarily taking care of everyone. They've been doing that their whole life from childhood, husband, children. They're finally for the very first time giving themselves permission to honor who they are and find out what they like. That's a whole section of people that would benefit. of people pissed me off though? I can't find a date to grab my ass. They don't want a date anymore. They've been screwed over too many times. Yes, and now they want to honor themselves. m It's so true. Well, maybe if you reach out to that group too, maybe if enough of them come, one of them will want to date you. You may have to wait for them to open your ears up. with you, I've been single for so long. It's like, I wonder, would I actually date? I don't know. I can't imagine, we've been together over 31 years and I always thought if that wasn't the case I would just, I wouldn't know what to do. I know what to do. No, not at all. what I'm hoping is that the end is we can really make Hiking for Hope a brand where I'm not only recruiting people here locally in my city or state, but people from all over the country. I've got this child or this kid or this person, whoever, there's no age limit. They can come out here to the Pacific Northwest and spend a week or a month. on trail hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and seeing some amazing uh stuff that they would never see and to be able to experience it, you know. And there comes a lot of stuff that come into doing something like that. I need to have medical staff that are on trail with us. I need to have the psychiatrist on staff that's on trail with us. You know, so bringing all these people and counselors and all that stuff. to frutations, that's where the real work comes from, especially when it's a nonprofit, because right now we hope to be able to, obviously our goal is to be able to come in and be able to compensate. But when you're a new fresh startup nonprofit like us, we rely on the generosity of others to come in, people to donate time and things like that. And that's the phase that we're in right now. So my marketing hack goes. go out and hike 12,000 miles, promote it to the whole goddamn country for two years, and then let's see what we get out of it at the end, right? That's smart. And I think it's not just the country, though. I I could see people from all over the world traveling in to have this experience because being from the followers from Germany and France and, know, yeah, all over. Northwest is being from there, I can say the Pacific Northwest is uh heaven on earth. It's one of the most beautiful parts of the world. It's a very unique experience. um so people would travel as a destination to where you are to have that the Pacific Crest Trail experience too. It's two different things. What's that? So I to get you two out here to hike for a week. yes. I'm there. We would love to. We love to hike. We've been on the trail. To your point, though, not necessarily. Well, I guess I knew because I grew up in Jersey, moved to Oregon, and I was like a kid in a candy shop with the right, beauty of it all. it's like, wow, we're on the Pacific Crest Trail. Like in in Ashland area, like Pilot Rock, Mount Ashland, that area. Then you get up to where would it be? Maybe up. by like Mount Hood, I'm not totally sure where it goes. It enters around Timberline area, right? that's Mount Hood, Timberline area. That's up north from here, So I think we've definitely been on it in different pieces, but not as the let's go hike the trail. It's hard where we are. Florida, we hike. What's the one? Well, we have a great trail, the Florida Trail, if you're ever interested. It starts down in the swamp and big Cypress Swamp. So you're walking through water that's up to your waist. Yeah. And it's crazy, man. People get in that water, there's alligators. But we've done it. We start, we've one part of it and we have like a walking stick. Yeah, it was a whole thing. We love it, but there isn't any mountains here. We actually, yeah, that was a little dodgy. saw gators. We did like a 12 mile, 12 mile, 13. Circular. Who's counting, right? I was. By the 12th mile. But at one point it was so muddy we wound up taking off our shoes. Yeah. We're like, we're only at mile seven. Do we want to walk another six and, you know. And then we put them back on. We do love to hike. We try to hike whenever we can. But where you are, there's nothing like that where we are. So that alone. whole stretch, right? I mean, you start in Southern California, go up through Washington. I looked at the map today. I was like, I got to check this out because it meanders, right? It's like the AT is almost fairly straight. The PCT kind of meanders, but you have to because of the geography. It's not like you can go right. And if you notice, like you get down into the desert floor, but it's for a very short section. So you're usually like what people when they when I say the desert. Really, we're like five to seven thousand feet. It's a desert, southern California desert portion. It does drop down into Death Valley and and what's the other one? You got Death Valley and... like Joshua tree that's probably too full yeah yeah we get into the more of the desert, actual desert portion. like a lot of the hiking is high mountain range, maybe some meadows, right? It's very high altitude for the most part. once I get from Kennedy Meadows, which is miles 702, you're 50 miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains. Once I hit the Sierra Nevada mountains, you stay between between 10 and 13,000 feet for about 400. That's crazy. To think of hiking for that long at that altitude with that air being much thinner. Yeah, sure there's an acclimation that has to take place. Maybe you get... me, because in 2018 I seen people that dealt with that, especially in northern Cal coming out of for some reason. They would have issues coming out of ah the Sierras dropping down into NorCal. I've seen a couple of hikers that had to get packed out because of elevation sickness. Yeah, but for me, didn't even bother me. Even Mount Whitney, I had no problem. That's 14.5. You know, just, I, for whatever reason, I'm lucky. I just don't have problem with it. Yeah. That's great. And then, so yeah, so the PCT, it's kind of, it's not a direct shot so much like the AT is. Yeah. And the CDT, the continental divide, you've got a lot of open planes to that. So like Oregon, I can pull 35 mile days, 30 to 35 mile days. It's real flat terrain. pretty easy even kill, I can get through Oregon in about three weeks. ah From southern Oregon up to the tip is three weeks. Yeah, man, that's still that's 30 miles a day, I guess, yeah. Yeah, it's hauling ass. Yeah, that's amazing. Honestly, just thinking about all of that, it's just, I can't even grasp it doing that. me what I do, because a lot of people say, how do you do it? Here, I leave the house on a Saturday, I hike to the U of O football games, and then I'll hike over to the uh Eugene, what do they call it, the Saturday market, and then I take the long way back. I can do 20 miles of pavement hiking with this pack on and still bust it out in about six hours. six, seven hours. Because I just put the earbuds on, turn on the tunes with my street hiking. I've got tips that I put on my trekking poles and I can just, I can average it between three and four miles an hour. Are you in the best shape of your life right? Like from doing this, would you say? absolutely. Last time I was in this good of health or shape was probably in the military. You know, my pardon. Probably mind and body, right? yeah, yeah. mean, living in Arizona the whole time, I sat behind a desk all day. You know, and I'd eaten the office donuts and drinking the lattes and, you know, making everybody else their money. And I got up to two, almost 280 at my heaviest. Now... um I don't even bat an eye to go, I don't even drive the most, 90 % of time I don't drive anywhere, I just walk in. That's the key though, honestly. That is the key. Now I assume, I don't know, but did you also, as you immersed yourself into this hiking culture and this whole new life you created for yourself, did you also change how you eat? yeah. Oh yeah. When I'm not on trail, I don't drink soda. I'm not a big soda pop drinker anyway, so that's not an issue. uh When I'm on trail, I can eat whatever I want. I'm burning on average between 5,000 6,000 calories a day, as high as 7,000. So I can eat anything, as much of it as I want when I'm on trail. Never get hungry, or never get full, always hungry, you know. And I drink about a liter and a half of water every five miles when I'm hiking. on top of that. When I'm not hiking, my diet really consists of a lot of fruit, vegetables. try to, you know, high protein. I try to get some fatty stuff in there. I got a sweet tooth, so I have to watch that. Yeah, I ain't got no teeth right now. yeah, do. Yeah, I eat a lot better now than I ever did younger. And I noticed as I get older, uh I'm probably older than you guys, assume, right? You guys look like you're......out of here. So... Oh, I thought you were... no, we're born 1971. Plus the surgery in Florida. We're also Gen X, but we're 1971. You've got to stay like a couple years. You only buy like what, three years, four years? Yeah. 71, yeah. So I'm starting to notice though that no matter how tired I am, I wake up six in the morning, five, 30, and then I have to get my ass up because I can't go back to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, we're the same. We get up at five and walk every morning and get out there by five thirty and we try to get over ten thousand. Well, it's easier for me because you sit back down to work. I a desk job. I get it. I get almost twenty thousand steps a day. I love it. I I need my walking. I'm not hiking, but I need my walking every day. It's also a mental health thing and just feeling like I have control of the day and it's the perfect way to start. So. ah scary thing about this hike, especially this hike that I'm getting ready to do is there's a point where you get so into. The hike itself, like we talked about earlier, you find that everything that was important to you before height is not that important. And you start to really focus all your energy on miles, food, water, miles, food, water. You forget shit. You forget. God, I haven't talked to anybody at home for three weeks. You know what I mean? huh. just get into that or you you start get into that mode where you're just trucking, trucking, trucking, trucking. Now to do that for 12,000 miles versus 3000. When you did it, I think it was 2018 you said, right? It was your first time through. I've watched videos of people through hiking different trails. And did you get into like a pack of folks at all? Like where you were hiking with, did you make, I guess, a group friends type of thing that you hiked with? No, not when I hiked with. I hiked with one guy for like three weeks going through the Sierras. But other than that, I was kind of the loner hiker because I was a solo hiker. Everybody had partners or groups. So I would hang out with them at the end of the day. Maybe there'd be, you know, some hikers at a spot that I would stop and camp with for the night. but I was usually the first guy out of camp in the morning. But 98 % of my hike is me, myself, and I in the earbuds and just... Yeah, but this will be your first time um incorporating the scripture into it, correct? Correct. So that's, there's going to be a lot of engagement this time around that I didn't have then and trying to keep a uh schedule. So I'm hoping that that will help me and help the time actually go by. Because last time I didn't give two shifts. Well, now I'm like, okay, they've got, it makes sense, needs to be done. And that helps. So I'll work it as we come by and get closer and that type of thing. So my last, I know I'll either be... uh October, right? Mm-hmm. So yeah, by January, so we will either be here or we will leave either January, February, just kind of depends on the weather, the grass, the glass, because the shit can change. It can change in a week or what have you. Now, the only thing that I decided is that I'm comfortable doing it myself, because I think I can make it through there. It just may take me slower time. I may have to slow back five hours or you know, whatever, but I think by having the scripture there with you though, like you were just talking to me, you've talked a couple of times now about how things get real simple. just water, food, miles, water, food, miles. But having the scripture there will also help you, you said, keep a schedule but also stay kind of connected in a way, you know, where, because you're going to have to be doing interviews and stuff like that. And that would be a kind of a jump scare to be. so disconnected and have to go into somewhere like Fox and Friends and give an interview and be with people again and all that. So I feel like that incorporating scripture is going to keep you kind of connected during those 12,000 miles. Does that make sense? and I agree with you 100%. I think it'll be an easier transition. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm just thinking, how do you roll out with a bunch of hair on your face? You have a shaver, whatever, in a while, and you got to interact with people. that'll add to it. That'll add to the branding and excitement and everything. Yeah, that's funny. Before I ask my last question, do you have any more questions? I do. I have a couple of questions, more superficial questions. Have you been up to the top of Pilot Rock when you went by there? I know the the PCT goes right near Pilot Rock. Did you guys climb up to the top at all? No, where's it at? What part? it's, if you're up at the top of Mount Ashland and you look, I don't what's pilot rock. It's in Southern Oregon. It's like a volcanic, uh, rock that just comes out of the earth. It's near the PCT and you can climb, you can hike to the base of it, then climb up the rock itself. And it's not like rock climbing, but it's more like bouldering. I highly recommend it. It's very cool. to I've got it written down. I'm going to check that out because the the mission is 12,000 miles. I've got to find 600 miles of off-trail trails to pick up. So. If you're up at the top of Mount Ashland, you can see it as you're looking to like Shasta from Mount A to Shasta. It's in between, I don't know, 30, 20, 30 miles from Mount Ashland or not even 10 miles or so. Okay, no, I'm gonna definitely check into that. My other superficial question, how's the Saturday market in Eugene? I used to go there all the time. I'm curious, is the Tofu Palace still there? That's awesome. We used to go to the Oregon Country Fair all the time and Tofu Palace had a booth there. Yeah. Yeah. to that in years, they just had their 50th anniversary, I think, a year ago, with the Oregon Bear. OK. Oh, we have one more. OK. The Umpqua Hot Springs. Oh, yes. you been there? How are they doing? Great. I haven't been there in years, but I have been there. yeah, same thing. In fact, they were promoting it quite a bit this last uh summer on social media. I was seeing people promoting it and pushing it on social media. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. We used to go there in college all the time. Is it still closing optional? Yeah, it's Oregon. Of course it is. We used to go there when it was just there was just the one little tub and then there was like some people started digging out a second one. Yeah. Yeah. When we were there. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I miss it. Oregon that smells like sulfur so bad that I can't remember the name of I know which one you're talking about though. Sulfur Hot Springs maybe? No, I can't remember the name. You know, I miss Oregon so much. ah It's such a beautiful state. I haven't come back to visit in a while just because of everything going on in Portland. It just makes me sad. you know, it's just not... I grew up like going to Portland and walking around and so... But we need to make a trip back because it's just such a beautiful place and I miss it. Yeah, definitely. That would be great. You guys should, if you do come back when I'm hiking through, then we could do a sit down or something. Right. Okay, my last question is always, where do you see yourself in five years? Where do I see myself in five years? Yep. Another long distance hike. What are we in? We're in 05 right now? You said 09, right? Or 29 to me? so it'd be 30. 2030. in five years to 2030. Yeah, I should be, I should probably go on another hike in 2029. I plan that 16,000 mile hike and run into gear store and who knows life, know, sky is the limit, right? Yep, yep. We can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing your story, Wes, and sharing the story of Hiking for Hope. And we'll keep all of our listeners up to date, too, on when you start your hiking at the beginning of 2026 sometime and follow along. uh where everyone can follow you will be in the show notes. So whether it's TikTok, all your socials. anywhere someone can find you it'll be in the show notes uh... so we highly suggest everyone go and follow west hiking for hope so you can follow along in the twelve thousand mile journey and support and you'll see him on different media outlets through the that's uh... twelve to eighteen months so this is the near in right at the beginning before all of this takes off so eighteen to twenty four months i i was i was making your faster than you're gonna get it out a lot of money Yeah, 12,000 miles. uh No, I appreciate that. Yeah. And I will give you guys a shout out as well. uh On all of our social media platforms, let everybody know. Tell them to tune into your guys's channel and promote that as well. And if you guys don't mind, because you're like really cool ass people. Thank you. love to throw your logo and your company stuff up on our uh partnership page on our website with a link to your That would be wonderful. That'd be cool. Yeah, we would be honored. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That would be amazing. Thank you. the logo, if you send me whatever you want me to use, I'll use that and I'll put that onto the website tonight and I'll add the link to it so we can start promoting you. So my email address is follow at hikingforhope.com. Easy, follow for hope. tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That's amazing. to promote you guys and you know, it's 24 months of promoting your business and your logo will be on our team shirts and stuff, Yeah, and I'll get you guys out team shirts too. Once they come, I'll find out the sizes and give you shirts. You guys have kids or? We do. have three kids. have a 28 year old, a 20, almost 25 year old and a 15 year old. Yeah. Yeah. So we're three years out of being empty nesters. So we'll get to hike a little bit more once that happens. But now we'll make sure everything is out there. em And, you know, any time you have something new. to promote, we would love to have you come back on to talk about whatever project, the documentary, know, whenever all this stuff comes together. But again, thank you for your story and for our listeners. If you have any questions for Wes, please leave them. We will make sure he sees them so he can answer you. And if you have any questions for us, as always, please leave them and we will see you next time. Bye.