[SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey friends, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: Today's episode is a super special one for me, because, well, I'll wait and let you hear the introduction.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I let this episode go long, so it's not the normal 55 minutes or so.
[SPEAKER_02]: It goes a bit longer than that, and we did that on purpose because there's just so much to talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: This episode has a lot to do with adventure, but also with Tolkien, as in Lord of the Rings, and Adventure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest adventure epics of all time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it kind of ties in in a lot of ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wanted to mention that it's a special episode, not normal episode for the Adventure Sports podcast, and as such,
[SPEAKER_02]: I am even posting the video on YouTube, so we do post our audio on YouTube rarely do I post video these days, but I am posting this video on YouTube so that you can, so that you can see Sam and you can see the conversation and enjoy that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and I hope that your Memorial Day weekend was fantastic, I got a great
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of back country motorcycle right in and my short story is I ended up sliding down this super sandy super steep you know, formal drive road into this creek bottom on the motor cycle and I got down there and I thought I don't even know if I can get out.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a true adventure moment for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I let about half the air out of my rear tires so it might get a little
[SPEAKER_02]: Scary for me, he'll climb, but I made it back out again.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a great adventure.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope your memorial day was likewise a fantastic time and boy, this is going to be a fun episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just dive in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey friends, this is going to be so much fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a very special guest today, special to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: this gentleman is a husband and a father, lives in Kentucky.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a pastor, a youth pastor at a church there, and he's an amazing, he calls himself a Tolkien nerd.
[SPEAKER_02]: I put the word amazing in front of that because his knowledge goes so deep.
[SPEAKER_02]: it is truly amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of blows my mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: He and his brother Seth actually have a podcast all about token called well-earned comforts and they do deep dives into not just the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit but into the entire legendarium and it's mind blowing just say it that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Samuel Moldenhauer is here today to talk about adventure but not just adventure,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the the quest literature and how that relates to adventure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's kind of where we're going to go, and Sam is my nephew so he is my old adventure buddy from way back when and I'm so happy to have you here with us and welcome to the program.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uncle C, or Uncle Curtis as I often refer you to, you're very generous when it comes to your words for I would I would say Tolkien nerd is probably where I would leave it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean amazing Seth sets honestly has the more lore knowledge and idea when we put things together He's always bringing the very intricate details that I kind of look more broad picture, but
[SPEAKER_00]: I know we were trying to get together with the both of us on the podcast, which would have been much better, and we might still be able to do that sometime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we'll do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those of you guys listening, sorry you just get to hang out with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But eventually we'll get set on here, and it'll be great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'll do another one, because I think that this topic is...
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually really amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And today we won't go as deep into Tolken.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna talk adventure, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the Adventure Sports podcast after all.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when Seth is here, I think I wanna go a little bit deeper into Tolken and the adventure of that because man, there's an archetype here that I think will blow people's minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they're not aware of Tolken and all that kind of stuff, which most people are, they've seen the movies or, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be mind blowing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we'll save some of that mind blowing for Seth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's pretty good.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, I don't I don't I don't want to age myself or make this all sound silly.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, you used to come to our house when you were a little bitty-tik and spend the night.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we would have adventures in the woods because we lived in the forest in the mountains in Colorado.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the little adventures when you were small, I mean, probably three years old, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But then they graduated over time to bigger and bigger and bigger adventures.
[SPEAKER_02]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what the biggest one was, maybe I should ask you that question, but I'm gonna highlight one just so people kinda know how big they got.
[SPEAKER_02]: We, uh, we snowshoed in a fierce blizzard up to about 11,000 feet, and we built, we built snow shelters, emergency shelters.
[SPEAKER_02]: And while this blizzard was was coming down, we're cooking dinner, you know, in the dark, the winds, howling, and the snow is piling up on our shoulders and heads so fast that we had to keep knocking it off of each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: The temperatures dropped that night.
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have a thermometer.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'll just grab how cold it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember very clearly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very cold.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we slept in these emergency snow shelters all night and got up the next day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just such an amazing almost full hearty adventure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we pushed the envelope of what we should have attempted.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were fine, but not without some scary moments.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll say it that way, but this is how cold it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: The next morning, I needed to put on my boots for some reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I managed to get my boots on and then my hand started getting frostbite.
[SPEAKER_02]: but they weren't tied yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: So once my boots were on, I put my gloves back on and I hiked up to where there was some sunshine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I did just no dance.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the snow dance is where you kind of jump up and down and swing your arms and tell you warm up a little bit in the sunshine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I took off my gloves to tie a boot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got one boot tied and my fingers froze up again.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I put my gloves back on and started doing this note ants, and then finally got the second boot tied.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how cold it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: You tell me how cold that is?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're below zero.
[SPEAKER_02]: South of zero somewhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was a cold night.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a cold night.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, from, you know, little tobogganine adventures in the woods to doing some, I mean, deep, winter, Rocky Mountain adventures.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did, we did the things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So first question for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think was a biggest adventure?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that one's definitely up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, see, so we've done three different snow trips that I remember with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The very very first one that I did, I forget how old I was maybe 14.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the one that we did in the spring.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just Caleb and I and you and Travis and we didn't do a snow cave, but we tended on like this snow bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember hiking up there and this was like the first time really that I'd done like anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: that extrinuous and I definitely wasn't in hiking shape.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had this pack on me and I remember we were walking up there and I was just getting so tired and I remember at one point you were like, all right man, you have to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I can't, I can't move, I sat down in the ground and this is no, and you grabbed my pack off of me, you threw it over your shoulder, you said, we're going.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, okay, that's a little easier, I can do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is one of the stories that I mentioned that I've shared.
[SPEAKER_00]: as a sermon before where, you know, sometimes you're just going and you don't think you can go any more and then somebody comes and helps shoulder your low bear one another burdens.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're called to do as Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, uh, obviously my uncle beared my burden there and then Caleb, I remember telling me it was like, it's going to be so worth it once we get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember telling me encourage me, it's going to be so worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we got up there and then
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, we made camp and stuff, but then the next day, we hiked up to the, was upper crater lake or something up there, and then we, however, we sort, like, what body surfed down the hill, down this snow bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, just on our stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a little glistating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it ended up being so much fun, and I'm glad I, I toughed it out, but that was the first one, and that, that was pretty, pretty intense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we had the, we were full-time, caving one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it was a dead joke, but I got two young kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm working on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not as smooth as I like it to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get there But but the next one Steven my brother Steven was there and I remember we tried to do the The window for snow cave, so you and Travis made a snow cave Steven me and Caleb made a snow cave, and then we made like a a little hole to connect the two so we could
[SPEAKER_00]: Conversive, you know, something happened and I remember that was not such a great idea because So I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and so I moved my pack out of the door Which was blocking all the wind coming in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I go do my business.
[SPEAKER_00]: I come back in, but I did not in fact shut the The pack did not shut the door
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it didn't shut the door, so when we're flying through both our side and your side kind of settled in your side, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it made yours the older than our side.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did feel a little bit bad about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But probably the funniest part about that one is Steven decided he was not going to brave the cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, he just rolled over and uh to put a delicately melted part of our snow cave and was one of the worst uh you know dehydrated stenches I've ever smelt.
[SPEAKER_00]: That lasted far longer than it should have in this okay But those were those were I'd say a bit more tame, but yeah, I think the one that you described was probably the Pride the coldest I remember The next morning doing this no dance and then Steven coming over and and I was just like what are we doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is ridiculous and like my fingers were cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just standing there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, it's fine It's okay, and thankfully we had that son.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't imagine like if it wasn't you know We didn't have that son, but then I remember we went on on the frozen lake and
[SPEAKER_02]: the wind was how it like what 80 miles per hour gusts where we could just put it out and fly away pretty much like just start sliding it was well I don't know how high the wind was but I do know this terminal velocity for skydivers is about 120 miles an hour and the wind was strong enough to knock us off our feet
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're approaching terminal velocity.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not, I don't think we were there, but we were approaching it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think we had gusts up around 100 miles an hour.
[SPEAKER_02]: Trees were falling down around this.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were just collapsing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we ended up to cross this lake.
[SPEAKER_02]: We locked our arms like arms over shoulders so that we could walk through the wind without literally getting picked up and blown off.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that was the trip to where we saw the avalanche, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that was the, that was the way it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a wet slide.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you're right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember, like, the just allowed noise and then seeing that glacier fall with a bunch of snow and I was like, man, that was, that was cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, definitely a lot of adventures courtesy too.
[SPEAKER_00]: My uncle Curtis, my parents always just were, you know, pretty much anything that Uncle Curtis wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We invited us along with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went.
[SPEAKER_00]: snowboarding a bunch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I want snowboarding y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're skiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got past that pretty quick, but every Friday we'd go up there to Odora and we'd hit the slopes together and have our packed chilly lunch and the thermuses that anti-animalists.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was for whatever reason, it tasted so much better.
[SPEAKER_00]: in that lodge after half a days of snowboard and then then I could ever taste a chili now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't agree with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's something wonderful about warm, any kind of food when you pin out, you know, fighting the cold and exhausting yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: matter of fact we're watching alone this week and we never watched alone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know they're unlike season 12 or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right years it's been running and we just started kind of watching some of the old stuff, but you know to see someone smash a mouse and then cook it up and eat it without any spices and say, oh, it's the best thing I've ever had in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: That does happen to people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we did have some amazing adventures and, you know, we need to dive into a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, first of all, I got to say to your parents, I can't believe they had that much confidence in me to let me drag you into this stuff, and we didn't always do it right.
[SPEAKER_02]: We made some mistakes and looking back on it now, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got through, but I will say this.
[SPEAKER_02]: We learned the most.
[SPEAKER_02]: by challenging ourselves and going outside of our comfort zone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you don't want to challenge yourself to the point that someone gets hurt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to challenge yourself enough that you learn something about yourself and maybe you learn some adventure skills, some bushcraft skills, some survival skills, you know, those sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really believe in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think I put you guys through that because we did some stuff that looking back on the one when it was so cold and we were in the Blizzard,
[SPEAKER_02]: We got through it, but there was a moment there that could have gone really, really badly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was in the evening when we're trying to build the shelters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious what your recollection is of that, because I have my own, but I've reflected on this over the years, and I've thought, that was a life or death, and it's maybe
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's interesting that you say that because my perspective was man, my uncle Curtis is an expert about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we're here and he's okay, then we're going to be fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like obviously I was cold, I was uncomfortable, but I never thought that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that thought really didn't come to my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Outside of like, obviously I have to work and get this shelter up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or then yes, something could happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the fact that you were as calm and confident as you were.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe like you said, maybe a little fool-hardy, but like that gave me the confidence to be like, oh, we're going to be fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's not going to be a big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember
[SPEAKER_00]: probably the hardest part was after we got the shelters and then we were trying to make make our little dinner on the stove and yeah, but we had swed it so much digging out all the snow you know with our with our coats on and stuff and then you know we're wet and then you know there's no so it's pitch black and the wood stew like it's it's as dark as it's a blizzard yeah it's a blizzard and yeah so that was
[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly uncomfortable, and I remember just trying to like just drinking like the warm water that we melted snow in there and drinking that and just letting that kind of, I remember the sensation physically of the warm water going down my body and just kind of warming my insides as we're you know kind of trying to eat as quickly as possible to get into our bags as quickly as possible and start warming up but yeah, I never thought I was left or death so to hear you say that now it's like
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've actually thought about this, and I thought, hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we shouldn't, should my mom hear this, should we cut this out?
[SPEAKER_02]: She won't listen to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: She might.
[SPEAKER_02]: Paula?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: So...
[SPEAKER_02]: The deal was that we were going to build two snow shelters and we were actually experimenting with a new kind of snow shelter where we're using tarps to make an a-frame over a snow pit, and then covering the edges of the tarps with snow.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason for this is because building snow caves when it's that cold and it's an emergency, it just takes too long.
[SPEAKER_02]: The snow doesn't want to pack very easily.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can die trying to build a snow cave.
[SPEAKER_02]: Matter of fact, I have a friend who did.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh, she was found dead outside of a half-built snow cave, man, and it's the real deal people.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the reason I say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry to bring up, you know, such sad moments, but by doing the tarp trick, you could build a warm shelter, not as warm as a snow cave, but you can build a warm shelter in any conditions.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you can do it in a matter of minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for emergencies, it's so much better.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to describe the shelter to people so that they know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it might, you know, it might save a life, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is the first time that any of us had attempted this and matter of fact, I had never seen anyone explain how to do it before.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just dreamed this idea up and said we got to try this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you dig a pit that is a little shorter than your tarp and that is narrow enough that you can make the A frame so the tarp will cover the pit completely and it's going to be more narrow than you think because the tarp is getting folded right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then you string some paracord or some line of some sort between two trees but the tarp over it and you use some prusic knots or something like that to tie the ends of the tarp to the cord so it's snug.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's tight.
[SPEAKER_02]: You stretch out the tarp and you anchor it as best you can.
[SPEAKER_02]: It probably will take sticks and some sort of cordage.
[SPEAKER_02]: to anchor the sides of the tarp.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the wind doesn't carry it away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that what it is?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we used everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: We ski poles.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had, I actually had a couple of snow anchors that a friend of mine had had made.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was trying those out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have to heap up snow on the ends with the tarp, of course, to seal it off.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're down in a pit that provides you the insulation you need.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're sheltered from the snow.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you seal it off so the wind's not blowing through like it did be time that you left the door open so Steven and I were making one shelter and you and Caleb were making the other and you had dug a pit that was too big and so yeah this is the part that got scary it's the sun is already set
[SPEAKER_02]: And Steven and I are pretty much done with our shelter, and I'm thinking, okay, we're fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have our shelters.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and then Caleb, I think it was walked up to me and said, Dad, we need some help.
[SPEAKER_02]: ours isn't working out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we walked up the hill to where you were doing your shelter, you were already like stage two hypothermia.
[SPEAKER_00]: probably why I don't remember this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean you were at the point where you weren't shivering anymore and your brain had already started to check out.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the stages of hypothermia are when first you start to feel cold in your shiver or you're right your lips start to turn blue you know your extremities are cold and that kind of stuff but then the next step
[SPEAKER_02]: is when your core body temperature starts to drop enough and that cold blood when it hits your brain it shuts down your thinking.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get sluggish, you're slurring your words, you can't make decisions, you're not even shivering anymore often.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where you were.
[SPEAKER_02]: The next step, the next step is, well we'll talk about the next step.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, oh no.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Caleb was not much better.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think Caleb had a little bit better code or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I remember I grabbed you guys and I said, OK, this is when you have to take action.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember that you were standing there kind of combatose.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, we have to take action.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what had happened is you had dug the snow pit too large for the tarp to cover.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you couldn't get the tarp to work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that became our kitchen that we actually worked in.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: We use that pit to cook in to get a win break in this blizzard, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we went up a little bit further up the hill and we dug a narrow snow pit that the tarp could cover and I got you active and you started at responding a little better and we got the hot drink into you and everything turned out okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: One other thing that I want to stress about that one, though,
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't just eat a hot meal, we took the time to heat up enough water to fill up our water bottles with hot water.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was so you could put a hot water bottle in your sleeping bag, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything was okay at that point, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But I actually, I didn't make a big deal at it, you know, at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: The CMI was worried.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And looking back on that, I mean, the options would have been
[SPEAKER_02]: If we're out of reason, you didn't warm up and start responding that we would have to bug out in the middle of the Blizzard and the Dark and try to get back to the car and get you out of there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was the second thing that was on my mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, well, we're going to have to run if we don't get this taken care of.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that would not have been easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had snowshoed miles into the wilderness.
[SPEAKER_02]: So getting back out again in the Blizzard and the Dark would have been, well, that had its own threats, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because we didn't have tracks, we didn't, yeah,
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the one that I've looked back over the years and thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: God is good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything worked out, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: We got warm, we got fed, and we had a good time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that scared me a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, as your old uncle, I confess again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can look like, well, man, like I said, I don't remember getting to that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do remember now that you mentioned it like that, that time we made our,
[SPEAKER_00]: That I made it too big and and that was our I remember sitting up against the wall like shivering as I'm trying to drink this again I remember very distinctly the warm feeling going through my body So I guess that was me kind of coming back to my sense of his back But I'm I'm texting you a picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took a picture of our cave I guess the one that at work eventually so It was on my old phone long ago, so this is like a picture from Instagram I just screenshot it, but I sent you the nice
[SPEAKER_02]: the picture and looking at it yeah it's covered in snow it's this narrow like half like tiny little half pipe of a cave thing with the top of it but yeah okay i got that looks true i got to look at it that was pretty normally wow it does not look like home sweet home i can say that no not exactly and the the other thing about this style of shelter is that as the snow
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why you have to anchor the outside edges really well, but I did wake up several times in the night and knocked a snow off of our tarp to keep it light enough that it wasn't going to cave in on us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so here's what I like about that shelter.
[SPEAKER_02]: You literally can make it in 10 minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe 15.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can if you really need a shelter right away, you can make a shelter where you can get
[SPEAKER_02]: it's not as warm as a full snow cave that you will not be able to make a snow cave fast enough if it's an emergency.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, making the pit with a tarp over it, I think it will save lives and it's also something that you can do with just a ski.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you didn't have a shovel, you could just dig out with a ski through your tarp over it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But people listen, if you're going to the back country without a shovel in the winter time,
[SPEAKER_02]: in the mountains.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll add that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anywhere, you're making a huge mistake.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, a shovel is it's like life to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So take a shovel, but anyway, and that was an amazing thing because then you'll be just fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know about that, but you know what, I also look at that with very, very fun memories.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember the morning the blizzard it ended and the sun was out like we already mentioned, and it was one of the most beautiful pristine natural, the beauty was out of this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: It what did that experience in particular?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's ingrained in my brain because something that Caleb used to say, I don't know if he still does, but anytime we would be like on the ski slopes and it was a sunny blooper day, the sun's reflecting off the snow and it looks like he said it looks like paparazzi's always around snapping pictures at you because it's glistening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just remember like, again, standing in that that little sun ray in between, there's like break in the trees and there's a sun ray coming in, and I'm just hopping around and seeing those little glistening's happen, but then also you look around
[SPEAKER_00]: and the beauty of just completely clean snow where there's not a track, maybe a couple like little animal tracks or something, but just completely just untouched snow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, this is something that I've used in my sermons before, because scripture tells us that he he wipes his clean, you know, wipes his widest snow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so to have that picture of my brain is
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been very spiritual for me, honestly, because I can see what absolute clean pristine snow looks like on blemish by any of Stephen's urine, but just completely on blemish.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, completely slate clean and looking at like, man, that's how God sees me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a huge mess of a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: as I was standing there as a mess feeling you know very very cold but also just that that understanding of like this is this is how God sees me because of his son and so for for whatever reason like that moment has been attached to something so spiritual for me so
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm it's the I guess almost life or death which there's been a couple times that I've almost died with a lindil Maybe musculates No, Dora we jumped off that big old cliff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think well, I say we I was the only one that jumped off the cliff It's like not any type of a cliff Yeah, and I I fell and I I was sliding headfirst towards a tree and I don't know if a guardian angel or what but I Somehow missed trees on either side of me and my board caught both the trees and I
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped sliding, but I mean, it was inches away from going head first into a tree.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I had been a couple of life for death moments with a lindil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that's the name of your own podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember when Steven Phil on what was it I always called it the wall.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was the destroy maybe Westridge?
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just before Musclades.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go past it, you get to Musclades.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, I always just called it the wall, but double black superduper steep and he fell and he didn't self arrest and he was bouncing down the moguls and going faster and faster and faster and he missed a tree by
[SPEAKER_02]: very little.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was another time that I was just like, oh my word.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of funny because when I was teaching my kids to ski before I ever took them on anything like that, I taught them how to do a self arrest, and skiers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, a friend of mine a few years ago was going down a double black and he had heard so you won't won't get beat up to just kind of ragged all so you can stay loose and just bounce down the muggles you'll be okay bad advice nobody do this whoever's spreading those rumors stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stop it you're gonna kill somebody he ragged all into a tree and broke his back.
[SPEAKER_02]: out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the self arrest that you do skiing, I mean, obviously you don't have a ice axe with you, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So the self arrest you have to do if you're sliding down a slope is you have to get your first skis in the air above you and then you have to kick them sideways into the slope below you until you stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not always easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes you're you'll bounce over your skis because you have too much speed But you have to keep trying until you stop so I always taught all my kids how to do a self arrest we'd go to like a blue black that was smooth it was safe and I would say okay fall down stop fall down stop We'd practice it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know why Steven didn't do it That double black.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like Steven.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know better
[SPEAKER_02]: But he was okay, um, God forbid that I had hurt any of you guys, haha, we, it, it's kind of scary actually to look back on, but we had so much fun Sam, I felt so honored to get to be a little piece of your life as you are growing up and coming into manhood and it was, it was such a treat for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was it was huge for me too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean obviously my dad had a lot of back issues like he likes that kind of stuff He loves skin and yeah, and we did a bunch of camping and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went to sand dunes and a lot of you can do some of the more extreme stuff Because he you know, it was just how to really bad back entry for a long time And so to have somebody like you to kind of come along side and kind of I mean there's really no manhood initiation in America Right, we don't have any sort of like hey, this is when you become a man, but I kind of look back at some of those trips of like
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to be a man to get through it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no little boy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't just like sit down and then Pout and be like, okay, someone take air me like you said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to get to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you certainly helped a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, even though it wasn't like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: actual initiation ceremony.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what I think kind of got me to the next level and I was talking to Steven a while back and he's he's obviously like take this in ran with it a lot more than I have as far as just the adventure sports and I mean he's you know hiking, backpacking, cany nearing all the things you know rock on your stuff like that and yeah so but we were talking and I was like man I really
[SPEAKER_00]: That was so huge for me and and again, I've kind of we've moved in a little bit of a different direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're still you know camping and stuff I took bear and we slept out on the tramp the other night when It was like in February, so it was still a little cold and we snuggled in blankets and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's two and a half.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was he was thrilled to do it But I know that I never got to learn as much as Stephen did
[SPEAKER_00]: on those certain things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm really excited as the kids get a little bit older that you know, Steven can be that uncle Curtis for my kids and they can do those adventures and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can go together and and give the kids the same because because you mentioned like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, there's a lot of risk in what we did.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a couple moments where maybe it was a little bit too much, but with risk comes reward, with kind of playing that line of risk.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when you stretch, like you said.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the only way you can grow as a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so pushing through that as a young teenager,
[SPEAKER_00]: I think exponentially grew me to get, you know, far more resilient with just other parts of my life that are hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it's not physically, you know, trying to work on, you know, taking care of finances or waking up early with kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's just stuff that, like, man, how do I not had certain really intense resilience training?
[SPEAKER_00]: This would be so much harder for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I see a lot of people around me, co-workers, and, you know, friends and stuff who maybe didn't have the same kind of intensive upbringing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's just a little bit harder for him.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I want to tell one more story.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the trip where we stayed in the tents.
[SPEAKER_02]: We saw the avalanche.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, we climbed up a ridge the next day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the first of all, I think you saw a Marmett up close and you were enchanted by this Marmett.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember and I'd seen a lot of Marmets, but maybe you hadn't, but I just remember you saying, wow, you know, but then some other things happen, rapid rapidly there.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a golden eagle.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it had flown into, we're standing on the continental divide people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Their jagged peaks all around us, huge snow everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bluebird sky, it was gorgeous, but a golden eagle had flown into this Cirque Valley, and there were two ravens that were just starting to build a nest on the cracks.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the ravens were chasing the golden eagle and they just chased it and chased it and chased it because they're defending their nest area and the golden eagle just kind of ignored them and then caught an updraft and flew over the continental divide and disappeared but it was such such a sight and then we had the avalanche and the avalanche thundered down and it was a wet slide heavy thunder in after all of that happened
[SPEAKER_02]: I get it uncle Curtis, and I thought, okay, mission accomplished.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, again, where are you, where are you going to have an experience like that in this city or, you know, at home, I mean, again, I'm not trying to like dog on anybody who doesn't take these adventures or doesn't take pleasure, and I'm, but again, somebody who has a very deep and green faith to be able to go into the most extreme parts of God's creation that he is reserved for the select few that are willing to go there and see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you stop, stand on top of a 14er, which I tried to explain to people out here in Kentucky.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a 14er is they have no idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, it's a mountain that's 14,000 B to Fc level.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a big mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a big mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like standing up top there and looking around and seeing nothing, that tower is over you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just the beauty and the majesty, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, there's no way you can look at this world and be like,
[SPEAKER_00]: There there wasn't a divine career like again, that's it personally like it just it is done so much for my faith to in those moments where yeah life is hard things happen But then you remember those moments hearing the the roar of that avalanche.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why I was so loud like it's it's genuinely kind of scared me Like it might my heart jump does like what what is happening because it was just so loud Again one of those experiences I I may never have again, but I'm so glad I did
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this is a great way to lead into what I wanted to talk about, almost all adventure literature that's out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Almost without exception is about a quest.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's one of the archetypes, one of the themes of adventure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when people go to nature to experience something or to find out something about themselves or to kind of rewrite their story a little bit, it's a fresh start, it's a cleansing, some people would say it's a baptism.
[SPEAKER_02]: When people go to nature for that, and I've had this conversation with a lot of people that hike long trails through hikers, especially.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, yeah, well, my life, you know, I knew that it couldn't continue the way it was going.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, how can I fix this?
[SPEAKER_02]: I had this crazy idea, full-hardy, crazy idea to hike the Appalachian Trail, you know, and that's how a lot of the throughhikers get started, and you don't have to finish the Appalachian Trail to get what you need from it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But so many people found out what they needed, and often it's not what they were looking for.
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't realize they were asking the wrong questions, even.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what they did find in spending that kind of time in the creation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somehow brought them through to the next step of life, I guess.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've heard people tell that story so many times I'm generalizing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Tolkien.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, he, he understood this clearly and when he wrote the Hobbit, that was a quest story and then Lord of the Rings obviously a quest story, but here's something fascinating about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I heard Malcolm Geit say this just this morning and I thought, you know, you are so right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Quest stories are always about going to get the treasure to win the fair maiden's hand or to defeat the dragon and you know, I mean, these are the archetypical or as Daniel would correct me archetypal themes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both words are legit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just one slightly nuanced in a different way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And don't expect me to explain it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not gonna get pointed out.
[SPEAKER_02]: that the the nine the fellowship already had the treasure.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were trying to get rid of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Tolkien, yeah, Tolkien turned the story on its head saying you don't need something you don't have.
[SPEAKER_02]: You need to leave part of you behind.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to sacrifice the thing that
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I thought, oh, wow, because to me, that's really more of what adventure does.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't come home with a treasure.
[SPEAKER_02]: You come home with a sunburn and you're exhausted.
[SPEAKER_02]: You come home having left something behind that you needed to leave behind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how do you think token illustrates that?
[SPEAKER_02]: You're the, you're the token expert.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll let you go there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way that he, I look at his work through the lens of his experiences, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the way that he writes, uh, came up with a lot of this stuff during World War I, as he's writing, as he's in the trenches about the song, like just in some of the most, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: brutal living environments and constant fear of death, and squelkinly small chance of success, but he writes through his experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so to start with the Hobbit, you're like, yeah, you have this, it's a beautifully crafted
[SPEAKER_00]: intro with this hobbit who is so comfortable in his home.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know he's got everything he needs he's got his warm heart he's got overwhelming amounts of food and ale and he's got his pipe he goes out he gets his male and he smokes and he has a great time like he just is enjoying all the comforts of home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right
[SPEAKER_00]: And then this wizard guy comes and's like, hey, you're gonna jump in this adventure with me goes, no, not like, I'm good We're not gonna do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need this and then just for whatever reason like and it's beautifully written the movies Capture it quite as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you can even what what Tolkien wrote in in the very beginning of the habit because Bilbo as he's falling asleep He's hearing the songs and the music of the dwarves
[SPEAKER_00]: of their adventure, of their quest, of their desire to go reclaim the Lonely Mountain, to defeat Smog, to reclaim the gold, and he's daydreaming as, well, really, really falling into slumber and, and dreaming of what, what could this look like for me as a habit, as somebody who's never experienced it in this poor.
[SPEAKER_00]: wakes up, realizes up, they're gone, okay, what do I do?
[SPEAKER_00]: And something gets the better of them, again, off comes, it's like, hey, you're like, get out of here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, okay, okay, yeah, I'm going, like, just impulsive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need it step out of my comfort zone and do something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the idea of, you know, a quest, bringing about that, that heart change, that mental shift in a person, like we, I think, told him to do an incredible job.
[SPEAKER_00]: and both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of his earlier works, though, that's a bit more nuanced.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously, like he said, the quest to get the girl barren and Luthian is one of my favorites.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and that's why we named her first on barren because, you know, he's pretty much told by Luthian is he's not good enough for his daughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has to go prove himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's like, bet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes another.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but, but with like the Hobbit, it's it's, it's
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it speaks to more of like just the everyday Joe who's not maybe already has the girl maybe already has a steady 401k You know, he's he's sitting comfortable, but then there's this itch about him that he's like, I need to go taste and see what that adventure is like And so at least for me, I've talked to some of my co-workers I've tried to get him to read the Hobbit they've started and they're like, I don't get it same.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I it's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay if you don't I don't understand how you can't but it's okay if you don't
[SPEAKER_00]: but especially the adventure that Bilbo goes on and he's constantly thinking of of home during this adventure, you know, through workwood forest when he's attacked by the spiders when he's fighting the trolls, when he's taking by the goblins, and even when he's fighting like face-to-face with some out, the dragon, like he's constantly remembering his home,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember that like standing up there trying to like warm myself in that little sunspot like man It would be great to be in my living room right now not worrying about this But at the same time you have to finish what you started you have to pursue and finish that adventure and so he did it Is it such a brilliant job talking did of of connecting our humanity?
[SPEAKER_00]: and the desire that we have for adventure, for going out into the unknown, doing something different.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to your point, like in the War of the Rings, they're getting rid of the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole point of the Hobbit was to get the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: To get something to get there, then they get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And realize, Bilbo does.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't what it's about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, he steals the Arkansas in a way, gives it to, gives it to Gandalf and them, and then at the end of it, Thoran realizes it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he, he, on his deathbed, and he's talking to Bill Bonis, he says one of my favorite quotes is, if more people valued food, cheer, and song, over-horted gold, this world would be a barrier place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thoran, the guy who was like, I'm just gonna go get my kingdom, I'm gonna get all this gold back, I'm not gonna share it with nobody.
[SPEAKER_00]: he realizes unfortunately on his deathbed, but he realizes that and it was something that how it had the entire time.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something that was very distinctive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that's something for a dorsh to say.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, because dorsh were given the desire for gold and to dig deep in the earth and to mine its riches, I mean that was part of how they were formed, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: But Thorne got it in the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very redemptive.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think other people see that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to relate this back to adventure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've interviewed so many wonderful people.
[SPEAKER_02]: who spent some time chasing the quote unquote american dream you know trying to get the the coach corporate job and and money and in all the things the stresses and that in the disappointment to come along with that lifestyle and i've lived that lifestyle i'm not criticizing somebody it's it's be one of the necessary things but all of that said they go to nature because they found a true or treasure
[SPEAKER_02]: something that matters more than the numbers in a bank account.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so many people that I've interviewed have decided to live in what I call an alternative lifestyle, because I mean, maybe they're doing the van life thing, maybe they're traveling the world, you know, they sold the house to afford the quest.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't look down on that at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I think that they have the wisdom that somebody of us should pay heed to, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they're living life to the fullest, I read a book by a guy that was talking about the American dream in terms of build your 401k, try to save all the money you can, sacrifice now, so later in life,
[SPEAKER_02]: you can retire and not have to sacrifice and sell your time so that you know and he says I'm not going to do that he just put his foot down.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said I'm not going to sacrifice my strength in my youth so that someday from a wheelchair I can say I did it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have enough money is that that's not the way to live a life and I actually agree with that there's a balance.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying extremes, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you need to prepare for retirement sure?
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: But are you going to sacrifice 40 years of your life?
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's the last 10 years of your life, you can be bored and not even have the strength to do the thing you always wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, those are harsh words, but I think, I think that's kind of what you're talking about is what the Adventure Sports podcast has always been about.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's what Tolkien was trying to, what's the quote?
[SPEAKER_02]: You can say it better than I can, but Bilbo tells Frodo, you gotta be careful when you step out your door because you never know, how does that go?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you better keep your feet, or there's no telling where you'll be swept off, do.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just it, but if you never go out, your garden gate, you never step outside your door.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where will you be?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the Hobbit does a great job of, again, with the character of Bilba where he gets to satisfy this desire to go on an adventure.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then he also, he is still comfortable at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he wants to go on more adventures and he comes back.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good give and take and that's how I've taken my life, especially.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that I'm an adult and have a mortgage and have kids, and it's like, okay, I can take little bits of these, you know, adventures, you know, respits at a time, but I have to come back, you know, and I have to, you know, not that I'm as comfortable as Boba was, obviously, waking up every three or four hours and night with these little kids and, you know, just the the difficulties of young kids, but
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a responsibility here, and I have a responsibility to my students as a youth pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so as much as I go out, I need to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I come back, I shouldn't be coming back with less.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should be coming back with more, if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I shouldn't be coming back defeated with something I should be coming back with something to give.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how I felt in the adventure I've taken since is like I get to come back and whether it's a cool story that I can share or whether it's a cool picture that I got to take somebody who will never get that experience can look and be like, wow, that's really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to boast or brag like, hey, look at this view from a 14 year, but it's also like,
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you're never going to get to experience this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something I tell our students when they're fundraising for mission trips because they're worried about having to, you know, ask people for money.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, hey, they may never actually go, but they get to be a part of it because of supporting you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through you, they get to hear your stories, they get to see your pictures, they get to see the work they got us done through you, and then therefore they're a part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even though they can't go, now obviously in our day of day and age of like over saturated digital and you can take a picture of anything, you can find a picture of anything on Google, but it's something different when you know that the person like it's your friend or had the experience that's telling you about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think through doing that it creates a longing and people's hearts to find that for themselves, if they can.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people have asked me how Kilimanjaro was since I returned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I always just take pause and I go,
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have words for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's one of those things you have to go do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's something to be said for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I tried to put together some words.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for me, it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the experience was not what I thought it might be.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was bigger than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, in ways, I've kind of felt a little bit almost disappointed, but in other ways, I thought, no, this is exactly what it was supposed to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's what happens on quests.
[SPEAKER_02]: When we go on on the adventure, our expectations get defeated, but the reality is bigger than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what we bring home may not be what we were searching for.
[SPEAKER_02]: We might bring something, we left because we wanted X, Y, or Z.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we got home, we found out we got ABC.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was so much more important.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tolkien did such a good job of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just want to address what I consider to be the elephant in the room.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are so many people that never got into fantasy, mythology, sci-fi.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they saw the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were like, wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, it's a movie or maybe God forbid they watched the the Hobbit trilogy movies and thought this is what it's about let me tell you It's not really what it's about Peter Jackson by the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think did it a
[SPEAKER_02]: unbelievably good job with Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when they tried to stretch the Hobbit into three, you know, three movies, and then too much CGI, and I enjoy the movies, they're entertaining, but they're not true to Tolkien necessarily.
[SPEAKER_02]: The kind of art, they're bringing some of the lore, yeah, it wasn't in the book, you know, you get some of that, which is interesting, but it's like
[SPEAKER_02]: That's from the Sumerially Inter that you know and I'm not the expert on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where you come in But I'm just telling the listeners
[SPEAKER_02]: If all you've done is watch the Hobbit movies, and you can't quite get it, that's the right response.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not gonna quite get it from those movies.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's all the hype about, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are these people just weirdos?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not really.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can speak to that so much better than I can.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you start to dig deeper into what Tolkien was doing, it's not just a good story.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not just entertainment.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He put so many life lessons into it, and there'll be something just one sentence that it'll just be mentioned in passing while some Hobbit or Dwarf is up to something else and you go, wait, what was that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to write that down, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_02]: That applies to my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tolkien goes to put it in today or yesterday or something like really what do you have I forget which quote you did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just popped up on my feet, but yeah, the Pope quoted quoted Tolkien in Lord of the Rings something to do with I forget it very exactly the quote, but somebody tagged me in it and I said oh yeah, that's I mean even the Pope is getting it, but but the beautiful part of Again his writings like you said there's so many life lessons there's morality there's faith there's
[SPEAKER_00]: uh resilience, there's good and evil, there's deception, there's twists and turns that you don't expect things that unlikely heroes, like it's kind of the name of the game, like the the beauty of how it all culminates is it's through people you don't expect.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean yeah, I sure you've got those guys like Erdogan who, yeah, goes to the end and he does kind of what you expect him to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then you've got Marion Pippin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Frodo and Sam, for sure, but Marion Pippin' were incredible movers and shakers.
[SPEAKER_00]: More so on the books, again, Pippin' more for just comic relief in the movies, but more so on the books, like you see their bravery.
[SPEAKER_00]: The times they've had to overcome their obstacles and there's moments in their lives with it, they realize I was never meant to be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm here and I'm going to contribute.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give what I have on this adventure and I'm not going to look back and Elir on to the council of Elir on the council of Elir on like right before I all had out of a room.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tells the companions and this isn't in the movies But it's in the books.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tells the companions But actually I think he I think he mentions like there's no author bond that is going to keep you on this quest and Gimly says Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is a very fun kind of prophetic mention that Tolkien has because when they get to the path as the paths of the dead, Everyone runs into this cave, Legels runs into the cave, and Gimly's like, It's pretty dark in there, I don't want to go in there and, you know, has that come out like comedic like, And Elf is going to go underground, but a dwarf dare not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd never hear that of it, and he runs in, you know, because he has that moment of like,
[SPEAKER_00]: am I going to be faithful?
[SPEAKER_00]: So am I going to say farewell when this road darkens?
[SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, then he doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, but it's beauty, it's beauty because this was not like, like, all around and said, you are not being forced to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're being given an opportunity, and you're saying you're volunteering for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no other bond is going to hold you past beyond where you will go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every single one of the characters,
[SPEAKER_00]: Keeps going.
[SPEAKER_00]: They fraction, they split some of them die, but they keep going to the end until the task is accomplished until the quest is finalized.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it didn't go the way like you said, they expected it to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, you know what you made me completely almost off subject of what you were just saying, the what you made when you quoted, I was reminded that Tolkien is not an easy read.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that it's a very difficult read, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not as hard as Shakespeare, or Chaucer, you know, some of this, Milton, I mean, you know, but it is someone who was a true wordsmith, who put words together in a way that doesn't taste the same as our current American pal, yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's worth it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for people, I'll ask you this for people who are like, I'm not, I'm not going to be able to wait through this.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just not my thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have a recommendation?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think Andy Circus does a fantastic job audiobooks, so Andy Circus is the guy that play Gollum obviously, you know, has the amazing, smego voice that he's done countless things.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's now directing a new movie that's coming out, but he's read through the Hobbit and the trilogy and the Silno-Rillian and his voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he does a great job of, he's an eloquent reader, but then he also does a really good job with the voices and just kind of immerses you into
[SPEAKER_00]: into the scene without, especially like I think that's how Seth does it and he prefers the rob English like the old school I think that's like recorded in the 80s or whatever audio book versions but for those of you yeah maybe not used to writing because any he wrote these books 70 years ago now 80 years ago and so the language is a little bit different he's from England he's he worked it um
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a word professor, like he's a linguistic, so a lot of what he writes is very difficult to read in a, in a flow state that you would read like Hunger Games or something like Harry Potter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're if you're struggling with that, I'd say give the outie book a try, but again, I think the Hobbit is a great place to start Because the story flows so quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not as much of the added lore that there is in the Lord of the Rings and if that interests you then you jump into the Lord of the Rings and then and then you try this Illumarily in with help.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you would jump in this Illumarily in but find a podcast that's gone through it
[SPEAKER_00]: Check out our podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've done a bunch of things on the silver ring, but there's just so much he created a beautiful, complete world with many different races and thousands of years of history and battles and events that it's so much more than just those four books that we only think about when I think of Tolkien, like the world itself spans
[SPEAKER_00]: four ages and it's this long tail that was supposed to be the mythology for Great Britain that they didn't have.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is long tail so I think you can probably hear my son crying in the background.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me go grab him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll give him off to Ariel and I'll come right back to wrap up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: No worries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ariel's still sleeping.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's not feeling great so I'm on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna hold him for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for that sleep.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Sam has his son now.
[SPEAKER_02]: How old is he?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's one in a few months.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's sleeping on daddy's shoulder.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll continue on a little bit here Sam and maybe go a little bit long for the adventure sports podcast if you have time as long as
[SPEAKER_02]: as this works out.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't feel like we're at a point where we can wrap it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So stick with us a little bit people because there's good things to come.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to point out in my experience and I'm going to just preface this with all of you fantasy fans that are out there for giving me a fi step on your toes.
[SPEAKER_02]: After reading Lord of the Rings, I was very young, I was 13
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good age to read the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: But every time I tried to read another work of fiction, I just like, it's Lord of the Rings done poorly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I just, I was like, I need a new song.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is an old song.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kept find myself returning back to Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the OG, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the real deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's where I don't know how much literature was it spawned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, thousands of books.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how many.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unbelievable, but everyone's just doing a variation on the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course Tolkien, if he were sitting here with, if would say, well, I did too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got it from, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and he would be talking.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a lot of the old mythology stuff, but he packaged it in a way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other thing I wanted to say is when you're reading Lord of the Rings,
[SPEAKER_02]: To some degree the Hobbit too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't just look for the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look beyond the words and say, whoa, what is going on here?
[SPEAKER_02]: Take a moment to do that because that's I think that's what opens it up and makes people into true fans.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that people are just nerdin' out on a book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that there's so much more there that if you're only looking at the story you're likely to miss.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, challenging reading.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's, it's, it's the story drags at point.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's long, you know, and if, if you're looking at it and saying, oh, this isn't nearly as fun as reading, XYZ, then maybe that's true, but there's so much more there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, I encourage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, patients is rewarded.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: something we say on our podcast, the bunch is he mentioned he doesn't like allegory.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was not supposed to be like the recarnacles of Narnia, very clear allegory, as land is Jesus, and you see the redemption story, and so it's very clear allegory whereas Tolkien was like, I don't want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't help but put my faith into it, but I don't necessarily want it to be that I want it to be applicable.
[SPEAKER_00]: to so many people whatever kind of life experience they're in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the beauty of what he writes because you could be a staunch atheist and love the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good versus evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gritty characters fighting battles and trying to do what they think they perceive is good or you could be a very religious person and understand man there is so much more beauty to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever
[SPEAKER_00]: You consider it pure luck, Bilbo, that all these things happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, of course not.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a will beyond that again, if you don't dig into the silver really, and you don't know that that is the will of Arial of Atart or Tolkien's God in his works, but there's just so many things that you can take in any stage of life that you're in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can experience something that
[SPEAKER_00]: honestly resonates with you, but also excites you for what's next, and I really dove back into it and I've shared this on the podcast before, but
[SPEAKER_00]: when we moved to Kentucky from Colorado because I followed this dream of being a pastor and you know we moved thousands of miles away from our family and and I just needed something familiar and so I dove into the middle of the earth again and I read the books through and I listen to a different podcast that I really did a good job walking through a read through of the of the trilogy and it was it was my home away from home that I needed it was an escape that I could have to
[SPEAKER_00]: Feel comfortable and encourage to go back into my real life and say I can do this You know, Frodo is walking every step of the way is difficult He's got this heavy burden, but he can do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know Sam is is walking on loyalty on faith that hey I got to I got to stay with my master.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can do this and so
[SPEAKER_00]: In ways that similar to just real adventure, like the quest, the literal quest, I think can motivate us to realize, like, Man, if this little three, three and a half foot hobbit can, can march hundreds of miles to Mount Doom and finish his quest even though, you know, we can debate whether he did or not, but if he can do that, man, I can control it for work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can take care of my kids, I can, you know, do X-Wires being like you mentioned.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to make a public apology to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been carrying this one for a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully it's not that big of a deal, but it's actually when your podcast came out, which is well-earned comforts, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, ah, my sister, your mom called me one day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she said, hey, can we borrow your Lord of the Rings?
[SPEAKER_02]: CD set and I was torn so badly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason is, let me rewind, the movies came out when my kids were little bity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Matter of fact, my youngest was born the year that the last movie came out actually the year after, no, the year of, yeah, year of.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's month of the month of the real estate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the month of the week of.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had bought the extended edition of these CDs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason was because I knew that I wanted to share it with my kids when they were old enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Old enough to me was, well, the developmentally see when they're ready, but 13 is the recommendation and that's probably not too far off, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Off track.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had been saving these things, keeping them pristine to share with my kids when they got old.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly it, and it had become a problem, kind of like the ring.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Caleb, I think at this point, was old enough to start enjoying them, but I was trying to save them for Lydia and for Luke and for Daniel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when she asked if you guys could borrow him, I thought about
[SPEAKER_02]: how you three guys as young men were rough and ready and exactly what young men ought to be wrestling and throwing and tossing and I mean and I thought this is my treasure.
[SPEAKER_02]: They will never come home again or they'll come home in 12 pieces and I've been, you know, I bought them 13 years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean literally it had been over a decade since I bought them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, I can't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just can't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And your mom came through for you some other way.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's my apology.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I ever since then, I've been like,
[SPEAKER_02]: one in idiot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I should have just bought a second set.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I should have just been in the generous uncle instead of hoarding my treasure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's that's my apology.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually when when well-earned comforts came out, I said, well, somehow they not only got to enjoy Lord of the Rings, they they went further with it than I ever did.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, I'm sorry,
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think even needed, but, yeah, apology accepted.
[SPEAKER_00]: We definitely found ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I mean, my best friend Nate Browns at the time, who you probably remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did a bunch of adventures with us too, but he had also had, he didn't have the extended, so I didn't start with the extended, but he had the trilogy, so.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember watching the fellowship during the first time on a laptop.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were headed to Chicago for one of Seth's hockey tournaments and so it was an event and I remember like Gandalf dies and spoiler.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean you should just if you haven't seen him yet, that's your fault but you know obviously I'm back and you know, Gandalf dies and I'm like what's going to happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know the rest of the story and Seth was just laughing and stuff and so we've got another like four or five hours left to go on this drive
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, well, throw the next one in like we finished the fellowship during those like we need we need to watch the second I need to know what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we opened up the case and it's empty No, Nate had given us an empty cartridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just the CD case and there was no no DVD and there and how was furious?
[SPEAKER_00]: I let him know about it when I got back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like you can't I can't believe you love me on that cliffhanger
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, we were talking briefly before we went into the apology about how Tolkien, I guess, to his deathbed said that this is not allegory.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not allegory.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's true, it's not allegory, but it doesn't mean there's not deeper meaning and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's a fine line between what's allegory and what's not maybe
[SPEAKER_02]: paradigm or in metaphor is a better word than allegory, but I will say this and disconnects back to adventure sports and kind of a funny way.
[SPEAKER_02]: The power of the one ring, it was enticing, it was fun, people wanted to play with it, it gave people invisibility and when Bilbo used it in the movie, you remember he kind of gets scolded by Gandalf when he uses it at his birthday party.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he says, oh, it was only a bit of fun, you know, but this one ring entices people with a bit of fun, that's what they can do in secret.
[SPEAKER_02]: They go invisible when they put it on.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the key right there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the fun I can have in secret.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the thing that I can play with that nobody knows about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the one ring cursed anybody who got to close to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: They wanted to use its power, not just to be invisible, but to rule the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: They wanted to use its power, and it would entice them into becoming dark.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, meglomaniac's essentially it and even the hobbits who had a special resistance to the powers of the ring were impacted by it horribly and you know, Frodo tried not to ever put it on, but he wore it over his heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wore it over his heart, and during the months, years, I mean, I think it was years, right, of the journey to get to Mount Doom, it started to turn him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He turned against his
[SPEAKER_02]: lifelong soulmate friend Sam and and uh in the end he didn't have the courage to destroy the ring if that's not an allegory for what happens when we toy with the secret thing that we really would be better leaving behind or destroying
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, it's what it does to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I always ask people if the subject comes up, what's your one ring?
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to answer that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your one ring?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you wearing over your heart and having a bit of fun with in secret?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's gonna drag you down and destroy you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We make allegory out of Tolk and whether he intended it or not.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's one of the strongest ones for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I bring it up to tie it into adventure because we started by saying,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not what you go to get.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's what you might go to leave behind to get rid of.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I find so many people that get into a new adventure sport, a new community of friends, they go to a through hike or maybe they become a skydiver or whatever the sport might be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's road biking, maybe it's mountain biking, but it's a new beginning and they can leave something behind.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there, you know, what do you think about what is your because you're the guy who knows what's your opinion about allegory and talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think you did try really hard not to make it a one-for-one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he meant trying to make it obvious.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says in his letters that there's no way he could separate himself from his writings.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said he didn't intend to make anything at all a goreical.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he reads it again, he goes, oh gosh, there's like you said meaning in here that I didn't even intend because it's who I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: It came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as he's writing this, I think he was a brilliant enough writer to
[SPEAKER_00]: to try to skirt those lines but then also weave depth into it that again if you if you want to find a connection you you can pretty easily to either faith or his own like I said his own experiences the things that he went through I mean Baron and Luthian is literally just he he inserted himself in his wife into a story and it's it's pretty cool and and so you can look at certain characters and say
[SPEAKER_00]: And Tolkien himself, he said, well, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I run as not Hitler, because at the time it was coming out, you know, raised World War II.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, no, you know, industry is not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the biggest allegory probably was just his hate for industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his love for growing things, trees, nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's probably the only...
[SPEAKER_00]: staunch allegory you can really find is is Sarmon and the way he Perverts the forest uses it for fuel to Create weapons of destruction as opposed to Nurturing it and tending it and then the scouring of the sire at the very end of the books again not in the movies But Sarmon goes and does that to the one untouched peaceful place the sire
[SPEAKER_00]: and burns the party tree that Bilbo had at his, you know, at the very beginning of the, of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and so that's probably the biggest allegories you see as his love for growing things, the love for nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the end of that, Sam is given some seedlings from a malar and tree that he had gotten from Gladriel and Lothorian and he plants trees that may not have been, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: native to the shire, but then made the shire more beautiful than it could ever have been because of his adventure, like what he brought back from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, again, there's so many different allegories you can make, and I think he was such a brilliant writer that you can, again, whatever stage of life you're in, whatever you need to hear from, it can speak to you in that way, as long as you let it, as long as you give it a chance.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, for the people that don't know as much about Tolkien's writings, you've mentioned Baron and Luthian twice now, where can people read that?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not in the Hobbit, it's not in Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you can find evidence of it there if you know where you're looking, but...
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the rest?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's in the Silmarillion and it's it's beautiful because again, they're talking weaves so much of what he writes together And so Errorborn is a descendant of Baron and Baron is it's he wedds this this beautiful elf the most beautiful elf that ever was Because she was the daughter of pretty much an angel in an elf so already, you know, there's there's a connection there that is kind of beyond the natural order
[SPEAKER_00]: but then he falls in love with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ends up marrying her, but he sent on this quest because single, the elf father of Luthian, he says, like, you're not good enough for your man, and he calls him baseborn.
[SPEAKER_00]: He calls him a thrall, which pretty much like me is a servant.
[SPEAKER_00]: like actually like I'm I'm pretty I'm all right like I can I'm a good house I'm not I'm of the house of of Bayor you know I'm the son of bar here I've got this ring that was given to me by Finn-Round Felgon who's this high-of-know-door elf that came over from Valenor got to see the two trees in the first age he's like like I'm not just some random guy and he goes okay well if if you want my why if you want my daughter if you want my
[SPEAKER_00]: go to pretty much Satan, more Goth, you know, the biggest baddest, evil person, far beyond Sauron.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, most people only know Sauron.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was Sauron's like master, and Sauron was his servant, and he did everything at more Goth's bidding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Baron actually has to fight Sauron a couple times, and through that, it's just a really beautiful story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, Baron is not only successful, he's not successful on his own merit, he's
[SPEAKER_00]: with her love for him comes alongside the quest and does and pretty much does most of the work honestly and for them to get to that point they get a salmaryl they bring it back with a lot of drama involved within it where we'll or a giant where we'll bite off the hand of barren and so at the end of the story barren actually hands his hand that's been bitten off two fingers saying hey I've done it.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know and so at that point like there's redemption and then they both actually die and then they're sent to the afterlife and and Mendo says pretty much like Hades he's he's told like he's looking at Luthian who's begging to be reunited with baron which again man and man and elf have different fates when they die and so she's pleading and begging for to be reunited with baron after he's died here
[SPEAKER_00]: And so man goes to God saying I don't know what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what should I do about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then he gives her a choice and they end up kind of being reincarnated if you will.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they get to live out alive together a mortal life on Earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a son.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then through that comes the line of the Duna Dine and all the way down to everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Huge connection there because everyone then also falls in love with an elf Arwen and is told by Elrond Arwen's dad that Hey, if you want to marry my daughter you've got to go claim the throne of Gondor and do be who you're meant to be Everyone's like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll do it again different from the movies and the movies We're lucky and I don't want the power But in the books like man, I love that woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna do whatever I got to do to get to her So a little bit different, but again, that was probably more than you wanted to know unbearantly at the end, but my favorite story
[SPEAKER_02]: very, very cool and another confession here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I started the Sumerillion around 2,000, 2 or 3 probably.
[SPEAKER_02]: And somehow it became one of those books that has a bookmark in the middle of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I got through the boring part, and just as the good part was starting, I think I got distracted by something, and I've been wanting to go back ever since, but as much as I appreciate Tolkien in his work, some of the stuff, it's easy to leave that bookmark and walk away, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's like reading through numbers or dude or on, I mean, your litivic hits in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like, like, he spared no expense in creating his world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to some people, that's boring, it's drab.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do we need this much detail?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do we need it this much?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, he fathered who or what, like, timeline stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but because he genuinely wanted this to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: even though he knew nobody would think of it as the actual mythology for Great Britain, but he felt like that was stolen from them by the Norse when they came in, you know, pillage and invaded and stuff, thousands of your before hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I want to have something that the people could pretend to look at is like, yeah, that was who we were beforehand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a completely made world from the very beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the silver really is, is really the story of creation, the fall, the journeys,
[SPEAKER_00]: the elves, men, the origins of species, and so a lot of it is just drab and tough to get through, but three stories specifically that you can just read in their brooch diversions in the Silmerland is Baran and Luthian, that's the first one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then children are foreign.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did a whole read through in our podcast, but it is Sad depressing There's no happy ending at the end to again spoilers, but like it is the most Dark story that token wrote
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you haven't read that out, there's too many spoilers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to give them away because you would not expect that from Tolkien.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's what I'll say.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then the last one is the the fall of Gondola.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's those are like the three main stories that even Tolkien himself said he preferred those three stories over anything else he wrote.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see a bit more action within that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then his son, Christopher Tolkin, because the silver ring wasn't published until after Tolkin was dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: His son came and rewrote everything together.
[SPEAKER_00]: All his dad's handwritten writings and scraps of paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: He pieced his world together and then he created the full versions of children who were in and fall of Gondolin.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: You can go read those stories in their entirety on those books on their own.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can buy those Amazon or wherever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can read the Abridge version in Silverland and still get the suggest of the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I said we would save the deep dive for when Seth was here and believe it or not, we did.
[SPEAKER_02]: It might feel like we went deep, but we only scratched the surface.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, if you want to learn more about Tolkien and some of the deeper stuff, plus here, Seth and Sam,
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I call it jocularity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brothers being brothers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: We called that one, but that's what you guys call it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, the podcast is called well earned comforts.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have one last question for you, Sam.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I read Lord of the Rings, it makes me want to go have a big adventure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did it do that for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the beauty of the Lord of the Rings, specifically that trilogy, is how long the journey is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, people are like, oh, it's too long.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't get through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that's important as you're looking at your own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your life is a long journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while not everything is going to be this amazing adventure where you're hiking a 14 year or skiing down a double black diamond, but your life isn't a adventure if you make it to be one.
[SPEAKER_00]: having kids has been the biggest adventure of my entire life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm almost pretty much house like I'm on lockdown pretty much at this point with what we can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm not completely.
[SPEAKER_00]: I take my hikes and stuff, but again, like I can't just drop everything go to Kilimanjaro, like I would love to, but the beauty of learning how to teach these little ones up in the way that they should go and to see the world through their lens, the adventure of
[SPEAKER_00]: figuring out how to live with my spouse, you know, for a turn, like forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like just the adventure of what I do for for my work of like sharing the gospel with people and just taking passion and the passion that the Lord has given me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that there's for me looking at Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_00]: It absolutely wanted me to like, maybe feel like I had to go on an adventure.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, that's why I went back to it when I did go on my adventure to come out here is because life is an adventure and the book is so long and there's so many ups and downs, there's so many things that these characters walk through that it feels like, man, this is
[SPEAKER_00]: This is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: My life is like a journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can look at these characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can, again, you can, you can play the victim card if you want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, life isn't going my way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to do these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I wish I could go on these big adventures.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, your life is an adventure.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you make it out to be one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and if you take each new season, step with the curiosity of a habit who ran after some dwarves in the very beginning of the book, because there were just some weird curiosity and
[SPEAKER_00]: then you can find such joy and beauty in your adventure of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you're not always on mountain tops, even if you're not jumping out of planes, because every new season of your life can be such a beautiful experience that if you just assume this is normal, you're going to miss it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well said and a great place to wrap up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sam, thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sam Moldenhauer, again, well-earned comforts.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find it on YouTube, you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, and it's actually a really fun place to learn more about some of the deeper parts of Tolkien.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's playful too.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's super playful, and I really appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sam, thank you for your time today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uncle Curtis, thank you man, and thank you for saving my life multiple times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if I didn't even know I don't I love my little bird.
[SPEAKER_02]: A peril to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would hang you off the cliff and then pull you back again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's seriously, you've been such a...
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, such an amazing man to look to in my life, and I think a lot of our adventures, the ways that you pushed me, more than many people in my life have, I think is a big reason why.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am boy and today, and I hope everybody gets to have an uncle Curtis, like I did, and I hope my kids do too, you know, so, I'm very, very grateful for you, and what you've done, not just in my life, but also your kids' lives, you've got incredible kids that are doing amazing things, and you've lived your life the right way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say that like it's over.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not even close to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll never know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sam, thank you very much and I love you, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you too.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're awesome, sauce.
[SPEAKER_02]: And everybody out there maybe let Tolkien inspire you a little bit and get out there and have some fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take a chance.