The Deep South in 4K | Canoeing the Bayou, Hiking Texas, and Exploring a Plantation

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All of the musical compositions or arrangements and footage in this video are original, and were composed, recorded, and captured by Andrew Lin, Bryan Lin, Robby Huang, and Thomas Sinard

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Original content and music is copyright Adventure Archives (c) 2018

Tags: bushcraft,backpacking,hiking,camping,wilderness,survival,outdoors,travel,outdoor recreation,prepping,nature,4k,wild,survival skills,ray mears,les stroud

Video Transcription

previously on adventure archives we took you through the beautiful state of California hiked our way across high on national park reverenced the wonders of the navajo nation and wandered through Albuquerque now in the conclusion of our three-part roadtrip special we head to the deep south we've traveled thousands of miles but there are thousands to go as we explore the wilderness of Texas the history of the southern plantations the bayous of Louisiana and more join us on this final chapter of our roadtrip adventure as we make our way back home [Music]

[Music]

through the night and into the morning powerful gales rolled across the vast open plains of Tucumcari it was here that we camped after exploring the southwest and in spite of all the wind we managed to get a decent amount of rest yo were you able to sleep with all of them I have no happy how but lying on my back I couldn't sleep at all but if I lied on my side and put my pillow over my face and put my sleeping bag over my face I was just pretending like I was listening to some heavy rock music try to get to sleep where are we left the barren KOA campground headed up route 66 stopped in at a local diner for breakfast and went on our way vast windmills were scattered across all of eastern New Mexico taking advantage of the forceful winds that rip across surrounding fields

[Music]

just the other day we had been surrounded by maces and rock formations but now there was a boundless expanse of farmland and pastures we saw herds of grazing cattle and Hawks soared across the open skies [Music]

before long we crossed over the border into West Texas the landscape here was just as flat and expansive but the winds have picked up and a sandstorm swept across the roads the sky turned a dark ochre color as thick plumes of dust blotted out the Sun [Music]

and along with the peculiar whether to sell this peculiar dog on the back of a truck bag

[Music]

after hours of driving the sand and meadows were replaced by green trees and rolling hills a light sprinkling of rain fell from the clouds above as we entered Austin Texas

here we were grabbing dinner with some special friends local to the area the state partners yeah let's go feed these boys

we were headed to a restaurant that was voted best sushi in town and also happened to be where Clinton melody worked bartender is smiling at us right now because she's my wife and is very looking forward to meeting all of you oh my goodness after saying hi to Clinton melody we cracked open some beers and ordered some food nothing like some sushi and hot sake after a nine-hour Drive so usually I'm a sushi purist but they has something called the Texan and we're in Texas and I feel like a guy get it because I've lived in California everyone has had a California roll in their life I've never had a Texan role in my life so let's try this out very crunchy it's really good we all chatted over sushi booze and pork katsu just like this sauce this tastes just like delicious i'ma beat Sundancer right now and Thomas went a little overboard with the sashimi I didn't try the chef's special look the chef makes a menu and there's like an artistic flair to it you got a traveler Ben Clinton melody filled us in on tomorrow's plans we have together and we could have gone downtown and then the whole city thing but in Austin after taking some photos for this memorable occasion it was back to their place where Bryan and Clinton had a bit of a jam session while we all hung out and goofed off oh I'm just filming you filming him this is behind the behind the scene and for posterity's sake we all signed the state Parker's copy of outside magazine that we had both been featured in

[Music]

the next day we packed our bags filed out and crammed ourselves all into one car we arrived at rhymers ranch and were greeted by some beautiful wildflowers and some fascinating cacti well we know is pencil cactus you got to be careful walking through this stuff it doesn't look that harmless but it'll catch a ride on your pants and you won't know it's there and then you'll go sit down and you'll get his cactus thorn in your butt we find these a lot on rock ledges when we're scrambling over hills and we encounter this stuff and it's kind of like hard to scramble around it but I'll guarantee you one of them is going to get some pencil cuttings we saw some of the pencil cactus fruits and some flowering prickly pear cactus we hiked into a flowing Meadows speckled with colorful wildflowers

[Music]

then the trail took us into a cavernous gully water collected here feeding a different community of plants up there in the grasslands we saw a lot of blue bonnets and a lot of other and wild flowers and the blue bonnet is actually Texas of state flower and Clint informed us that you're actually not allowed to pick those but here in this like sort of watery riparian area we've got sycamore trees which are water-loving there's one behind us which has really the distinct white bark and we've also got a bunch of ferns growing like maiden hair ferns and also there's Virginia creeper and poison ivy which are some familiar vining plants from the Midwest but you only want to touch one of those obviously and above all mosses clung to barren tree limbs so even though a lot of the wildflowers were up in that grass area I do notice some scarlet pence Damone's clinging to the rocks on the side of this River area really cool as we went deeper into the ravine we saw climbers dangling from the rock face above moss-covered limestone stalagmites and stalactites dripped with water adding to the uniqueness of this Texan landscape further ahead Andrew and Clint talked about more of the plants that surrounded us I was walking through here and I was like what is this plant and I realize it's just really overgrown poison ivy vine just like dangling over like a tree branch so I don't want my face to go we do not want your face to go in there this is not boxelder situation and then over there you've got a huge West cypress tree it looks like a cypress tree but it also it also taken them mixed between a cypress and oak antigen uh-huh and then here that I've seen all these vines that I don't recognize but this one is definitely in the Brier family I don't know if it's one of the edible species but and other species back home where the tender tips of the vines can be snapped off in [Music]

tangled roots slithered across the ground as we continued an Andrew saw more plants that reminded him of home we've got an elm here which actually grows in the Midwest but I feel like I don't actually see it all that often when I'm out in the woods but you can tell it's an elm because it's got this sort of fuzzy texture and the base of the leaf does not line up with each other there's like a little bit of it that overhangs how many times have you guys been out here we usually go a different trail every time this is our favorite because it's just soon you start off in this and then you like a view out that way and yeah yeah yeah rock wall on this side and didn't make it to the river you have the option to get in or not are you getting in today I was thinking I was like I I would like to but we hikes deeper into the woods and spotted biade fall stay flower which has two lavender colored petals as well as some unfurling fern fronds then we entered an almost swampy area with more cypress trees they grow around the rivers around here this but they're really prominent in the Guadalupe River they do have a very certain beauty about them yeah they almost look like video games on trees that you have to hop from one they're just so perfectly placed yeah expecting Texas to look like this is not what I expected to Texas to look like at all especially after being in the southwest we expected Texas to be flat sandy and barren but our expectations were being completely debunked

[Music]

what we had found instead was a lush wooded environment full of greenery the canopy above was accompanied by colorful wildflowers below but in addition to the loud flowers were some cacti clinging to boulders [Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

oh there's some climbers stuff up there wind is a little bit terrifying that has been as angels landing mr. Paul will probably be alive he'll hurt [Music]

now we emerge from the forest and made our way to the sun-soaked floodplains of a bright blue river yeah that would be the prettiest river and that snakes and whines all the way through when the Memorial Day floods happened in Austin four years ago we were in a severe drought our lake had almost completely dried up and I looked like our big lake looked like that Memorial Day floods came through a washed out 30 or 40 homes killing a lot of people in Wimberley Texas but the Memorial Day flood came back filled up our lake and now all these rivers are feeding into that lake and it's keeping it kind of steady but we were back in a drought again so we need some more rain up north so it trickles down the Lower Colorado River here I came across an interesting plant I would guess that it was in the pea family based on how the leaves are branching but the compound leaf looks a lot like black locust back home but this racing with flowers is throwing me off it doesn't really look like something you'd see on a pea plant so we'll let the narrator fill us in as it turns out this was a morpha fruticosa the desert false indigo native to these parts it is indeed part of a pea family [Music]

the trail had led us to the edge of the water we found a nice rocky area along the riverbank to rest enjoy the scenery and have some lunch after enjoying some breakfast tacos we all reflected on the hike thus far I think of Texas I think of like big expanses of brown and yellow desert but this is just like bright greens and blue water and yeah especially considering all we drove well that's why I was kind of insistent when I was talking I was like look guys you're missing out if you don't down a detour to Austin if you just do that Texas stint you're always gonna think of Texas's jr ewing and the urban cowboy it's like an oasis yeah there's so much greener it's like the Midwest with a little bit more hills paradise you're in the heart of the hill country right now our tallest peaks out here are like two done we've come across some spots where it's like we drag each other up get dry Wow yes if it rains in Austin all that water goes south it has to rain two and a half hours north of us down recharge that reservoir that it can then flow down through us so this is the third analysis and Willie Nelson nearby we saw some foamy frog hopper nests some brown cockle burrs and blue curl flowers [Music]

we made our way across the rocky ravine and continued on the trail [Music]

and Clint found another wildflower that gave this landscape some of its vibrant color the Indian Paintbrush here seems to be more vibrant and a little bit more fun to look at but according to Andrew they're edible so if we ever needed to survive out here in the spring it's a good time to do it the petals look bigger than the ones I've seen out in like Montana Wyoming in California in the sky above a vulture soared in the wind we made our way across more of the limestone boulders that were scattered along the trail up ahead we found a huge thistle flower so we've got a thistle here I know that a lot of pistil species are edible I'm sure this one is too if you remove all the spines but actually artichokes are a form of a thistle they're just like basically a giant one and if you go to a place where they grow artichokes you'll see flowers just like these but yeah I've got many a childhood memory of like sitting on a little thistle leaf as a kid and wondering why my butt hurts so much but I think the ones in Ohio are less spiny than this there are a handful of fissile species in Texas this one was the nodding Bissell nearby was a massive Boulder where we tested our climbing skills on the rock were signs of past climbers chalk dusted handholds and Pitons so to be a climber that's like an entirely different breed of person one of the things you really need to just kind of accept when you're climbing is because of all the holes and stuff and the route that you take up sometimes we get some little friends that you gotta watch out for

also near the boulders were smooth down old tree stumps it was great climbing atop the boulders and seeing the landscape from above after a little bit we continued hiking [Music]

a gentle breeze rolled through the grass around us as we continued along the dirt path

[Music]

we wound off the path and found ourselves amid a stony expanse just by the river it suddenly got really bright with all these white stones it's like a completely different sort of landscape suddenly there's all this bright white limestone this area definitely had a mysterious quality about it [Music]

when we were back there it looked like the curb was going badly but in fact the wind on top is just blowing this way it so the river is actually flowing to the north and in addition to the strange flow of the river we found a Cypress sapling growing from an old worn down stump in the water a Great Egret was enjoying some fresh fish for lunch [Music]

and on the ground we found some dirt and some shells now with the Sun out it was time to take off our shoes and test the waters question after being out west feels so nice to be back somewhere where it's green and wet and as if this day couldn't get any more idyllic a rainbow coloured cirrus cloud or a circum horizontal arc appeared in the sky

[Music]

after a while we returned to the path making our way back to the trailhead [Music]

along the way we came across an interesting tree melody was kind enough to point out to the ski tree here and I love cooking this mesquite you actually take it from the woodchips of the tree itself and we found this on the on the ground here and this snapped it open it's got a sweet smell to it smell got a really inhale you really yes these are red are these uh fire ants these are a little different there they're like workers but they're called carpenter ants now that being said if they bite you you feel it I don't know if it hurts quite as bad as a fire ant but it stings about as bad as a small bee sting who's volunteering

[Music]

the final portion of the path led us through a meadow or vibrant cactus flowers bloomed and silver strands of grass swayed in the wind [Music]

we saw some prickly pear flowers on a carita shrub clusters of pincushion cacti and antelope horn milkweed [Music]

we overlooked the Pedernales River one last time before heading out for lunch at a nearby tex-mex place and after some drinks and a wonderful meal it was time to part ways all right rolling out

now we drove further east and we stopped along the way to feel up and have a sweet treat originally from Texas so Clinton melody were telling us about Blue Bell ice cream chocolate and vanilla okay I gotta say that craters not greatest from Ohio good for graders because they're like Breyers is uh it's not great bad it's good it's okay and then we were off for our next destination so on our way out of Texas we're going to make a stop to visit the one and only Tim Vida Texan camper aka trail aesthetics we're one minute away from his house he said that he has throat ripping ly cold beers waiting for us our bodies are ready we got Andrew on the internet and Edgar in real life [Laughter]

[Applause]

[Music]

presentation is all about presentation and Tim had some nice food for us to enjoy it's like biting into a cloud this is bruschetta is that really nice yes actually that's correct and this is in my mouth it's salty to be prepared it's addictive if you if you if you like the flavors you can very addictive this is incredible and going and going you going he said your wife answer yes she makes that the freshness of the tomato in this basil with the I'm sure nobody knows what a corona why just just the combination you know the contrast is nice

it's like a taste of Mexico then we played some games together this is the half of zero no humor over here Tomas had the perfect poker face they're going he psych me out on that one and after playing drinking and having some laughs we chit-chatted for a little while longer

by the way I publicly admitted that who cares so I think we have concluded that we have the greatest viewers and fans in the world

everyone's been so awesome yeah it's also cool to think about how many people we've actually met along the way yeah like this is a night and an experience of places but people okay so next stop a random hotel and the random middle of nowhere that's right now we were off to our next location a random motel in Mont Belvieu

don't let the exterior fool you this is a hotel we were happy to leave the motel as we had spent the night in our sleeping bags after finding mysterious stains on the sheets and then we were off next stop New Orleans New Orleans we crossed in Louisiana which had the most greenery and water we had seen since Big Sur we drove across massive cosway's that passed over wetlands and rivers and we saw a slab car with elbow swinger rims an example of slab car culture originating in Houston we exited the highway and soon arrived at oak alley plantation left onto Louisiana 18 West originally built in 1837 this place got its name from its beautiful live oaks [Music]

though this lesser-known cat was also a beauty to behold after thomas checked us in we got some special lemonade it's slushy yeah then Thomas and Bryan left to get the keys to our cabin all right guys bon voyage Thomas Thomas is doing all the work for us yeah it's great beautiful big oak trees they returned and informed us that tonight would be particularly decadent this is gonna be very different than adventure our guts [Music]

we arrived at our cabin which was really more of a fully furnished house this is literally the opposite of adventure our kite there's our food right there [Music]

the food came in plastic microwavable containers which seemed a bit odd but once it was all served on a plate it looked pretty good we had seafood and chicken gumbo seafood all gratin red beans and sausage vegetables and crawfish etouffee I'm gonna pour myself the first julep what been chopped into the south wait no to the Union to Hugh that's that's pretty good a strong cook it's really strong this is something I would never have even thought of doing on my own but now that we're here this is super cool yeah all right you like it because there's two reasons I wanted head to the deep south I feel like a lot of media portrays it in a way that's very back watery I don't think that's fair to accounting base it off what the media says so I want to go down here and kind of check out some of them myself I think another reason is it's just such a culture I'm not familiar with deep south the environment here is so beautiful in the live oaks it's beautiful weather today beautiful sunshine but at the same time there's a stark history it's so weird because at the time this place proper wasn't any less beautiful

it was probably super beautiful and people could live in that dichotomy of owning other people and having all this beautiful land and being okay with that yeah and I think one thing we have to remember all of the beauty and all of the work that went into maintaining the places it's from slave labor and it's important that people remember the past and learn

the South is a highly misunderstood place often considered backwards and ignorant but this is an unfair generalization often rooted in stereotypes about poor white people at the same time slavery has had a reverberating effect on our society to this day and it's important to acknowledge the real lasting impact it has on black communities equally important is to keep in mind that during times of the slave trade racism was used to justify both the exploitation of slaves and poor whites by turning people against each other on the basis of race those who owned the biggest farms and plantations were able to keep everyday people black and white from coming together in unity to fight for their liberation after our meal we decided to have some coffee to perk us up a bit and lighten the mood while southern etiquette might be lost on us we did want to tour the plantation to learn more about it Edgar and I split off to see the plantations natural wonders meanwhile Robbie and I went to learn about its history

dude look at this it never ceases to amaze me how people can treat other human beings it's absurd yeah I guess once you have it in your mind that someone is subhuman it makes it more acceptable yes

so apparently be a slave Antoine I don't I guess they didn't say his last name because maybe slates just one branded laughs yeah yeah but his parent Lee known for grafting a pecan tree but apparently what it was that pecans were originally very hard and hard to crack so he was able to graft one that had thinner shells and made them commercially viable ah but his accomplishments were you know consider it as master and not his but at least now he's remembered yeah posthumously and in a nearby Shack there were more artifacts of history nearby was a map that showed certain counties had more slaves than they did three people highlighting just how much those with land depended upon slaves to build their wealth

[Music]

it's on a wall where the slave names of those who once toiled on this land [Music]

you know it's really easy to judge them and they should be judged don't get me wrong what they were doing was terrible but it makes me think about what are we going to be judged for in the future that we think is perfectly normal now but we'll look like barbarians to people in the future that's true it's kind of funny maybe they knew what they were doing was wrong in the same way we know some of the things we're doing are wrong yeah but it's like so much part of the culture it's hard to change [Music]

it's important to learn history not just to understand the past but to reflect on what we as a society are doing today and how that will affect the future unless we examine the past and think critically about what needs to be changed today and how we can change it history is rendered useless

[Music]

can you imagine if this was just like a place where you lived with all of your friends instead of slaves yeah like how much more fun could we be having as humanity as a whole if we were working together to have fun instead of working together to make each other's lives miserable

today we already produce enough food to feed everyone we have more empty houses than we do homeless people we have to wonder are we misusing all the beautiful wonderful things we have at our disposal [Music]

we were glad that at least today people of all races could enjoy the beauty of this plantation and its antique trees at the start of this trip it was basically just a desert like wasteland yeah and now we're surrounded by trees that are like as big as a car this must be like a real shock for Thomas it's good in California for so long this greenery is just like his eyes are gonna start bleeding while the others learned about the plantations history Andrew and I explored its natural wonders namely the live oaks from which against its name a dragonfly swayed upon oak leaves in the breeze and the evenings light cast the grass around us in a warm glow [Music]

as we stood in reverence of the massive trees be reflected on the plantations history when I look at the trees all I see is benevolence like I see this ancient creature that is innocent and it's just this this being that is something above us you know I think that's why this is so beautiful yeah in a way it feels unsettling that a place that evokes such a violent and shameful part of our history is now to us a beautiful place to enjoy the day and relax

but it's hard not to relax when you're surrounded by nature go into nature and you'll see that the wild into animals that roam these grounds pay no mind to our borders or our laws or rules nature is a great way to escape from the worst aspects of our society but nature also carries lessons about how we might strive to better our society and improve conditions for all [Music]

the evening cast everything into a golden light and we decided to meet up at the Mississippi River to watch the sunset

[Music]

the Mississippi was just as vast and beautiful as we had all imagined it from stories we read his kids [Music]

we saw a massive barge surging across the water

hauling tons of goods and in the opposite direction came a cruise ship his crown shaped smokestack seemed fitting for its name the American Queen

[Music]

after watching the sunset we headed back to the plantation [Music]

the plantation seemed even more beautiful glowing in the dark of night and surrounded by a solemn silence but back in the cabin we were raising a ruckus with live guitar music and bubbling water from the hot tub into accompany us in the hot tub some chilled mint juleps [Music]

oh man that feels so good here's to feeling good all the time Cheers

I've got elephantitis system we have enabled affinity

sometimes silence is all bit the key to a happy life is to take advantage of all of your opportunities even if they're not exactly the way you yeah yeah I mean you got a Jacuzzi and you don't use that composing or you can do it cheers to that

if you got a picture of mint julep and you don't drink it what are you been doing cheers to that you might not have a loving partner around but at least you've got a friend why not share the jacuzzi

you got a camera lighting the lid why not film yourself sharing that jacuzzi and share it with thousands of people Brian Thomas in a place where so much suffering in English has happened it was nice to have a moment of levity and laughter as the night sky rolled by overhead we enjoyed a comfortable night's rest inside [Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

the next day we went to the plantations restaurant for a complimentary breakfast we have some coffee of course some luxurious crawfish omelets and beignets covered with sugar cane syrup oh man that's like the lightest fluffiest Krispy donut

since I thought Kim alone in this ploughed mm that's not overly sweet like God I could help in yours Wow after an indulgent morning it was time to get back into nature today we were getting out onto the bayou [Music]

after the guides reviewed safety and told us where the Gators were hiding we suited up and paddled out I feel so happy to be back in a cameo it's like it's such a graceful way to travel I mean you make these subtle movements in the water and the boat just turns to Lou you want it to everything's so peaceful when you're on the river like even though if there's cars nearby

it just feels like we're in the Rob the wilderness right now was the last time you can you Thomas with you guys I was just thinking about how when you first get on the commute is just a little bit of apprehension

start to settle in here really comfortable in the water and paddling and it's always so relaxing came upon a fork in the river and decided to go our separate ways

so it splits and meets back up see you in a bit so right now we are going through a fairly narrow part of the river that's kind of thick I feel like we're a little on edge just cuz we've heard all these stories and legends of alligators you know and - in Ohio and we think every log is an alligator and every patch of vegetation is also full of alligators and maybe every branch hanging over us has a deadly snakes that'll fall into our boat but but at the same time this is such a peaceful scenic area that it's it's hard to feel too worried about all that right now and we just heard something but I really think that when you're out here the dangers of the wilderness are much more exaggerated and they actually are that doesn't mean you shouldn't be safe and you shouldn't be aware of how to treat the wilderness and how to respect it but it's also just super peaceful all right so I think compared to Algonquin which is just a series of lakes the Bayou is actually pretty shallow which really kind of makes sense because you can't get much lower than sea level I hear something over there how's the paddling so far

feels good I like paddling canoes a lot I do feel like over the course of the episodes we've filmed that have gotten better at navigating with the community one person you guys okay it seemed Tomas and I got the rougher prong of the fork we're all clear now I think the vegetation they were talking about that we can't get this and we soon came across more obstacles at this point we're just kind of using the vegetation to pull ourselves yeah they said we could power through this they believe in us

paddling through the vegetation was kind of like pushing a car with a flat tire but eventually we made our way through yeah there we go yeah that was awesome love these waters how was it it was dense but uh it was fun it was really just that last part that was super dense said use your hip muscles you're thrusting muscles how was yours pretty clear smooth it could not have been any clearer and smoother it was it wasn't that bad honestly it's just there were logs underneath that we would scrape up against to get stuck on some nope not yet but it seemed one of the tours we caught up with did have some animal encounters didn't take long for us to see animals ourselves all around us were snakes turtles and birds like this Osprey in its nest [Music]

and in the water below we saw some beautiful water lilies Spanish moss was dangling from the cypress trees and along the way I saw the distinct leaves and sausage-shaped flowers of the genus taifa or cattails usually when I find typhus it's just in a way too polluted area it's full of like pesticides because cattails actually absorb a lot of like heavy metals and toxins which is why wetlands are so important to our waterways but I'm willing I would bet out here it's a little cleaner of water I don't know maybe not but I did have it when I was in camp one time as a kid and it tasted really good and I wish I I could eat them more often but I don't want to get cancer [Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

everywhere the landscape of the Bayou was distinctly characteristic the tall trees and the moss were just part of what gave it it's swampy look so I'm not exactly sure what type of trees these are with ultimata enough but I imagine it's some sort of a cypress and down towards the roots you can see these sort of knobbly looking knees sticking out of the water and from what I've read scientists aren't actually sure what the purpose of those are but there's some theories that maybe it helps them get extra oxygen or something like that you you see that a lot with cypress trees growing in the swamps and stuff you leave that a special treat to eat on the bayou has some boiled peanuts and actually interestingly enough it's not only a very southern food but our parents who are from Taiwan originally they eat this all the time but yeah so I actually grew up eating these and I love them not Cajun flavored but still all right let's try it Oh mine doesn't have any people there it is it's a half a peanut in mind it's a Cajun flavor is our Cajun flavor whoa nice and salty they're salty and soft Wow yeah that's what I love about boiled peanuts as they're soft juicy now now they get that spicy Cajun kick I could get used to this after our snack we kept paddling and saw some bird boxes so I believe the boxes are where little animals and critters come in but I don't know exactly why they have those up my understanding was that it was bird boxes but sometimes other critters just get in there they do say snakes sometimes get in there and sometimes they'll find them inside yeah that's kind of like the whole from Indiana Jones stick your hand in there and that unknown terror has come out that's kind of what like at least our perception of this land kind of feels like sometimes like it's so peaceful but at the same time there's this slight worry that there's an alligator hiding in the bushes there I kind of look at it the same way like you do flight attendants is the flight attendants aren't panicking then you don't have any reason to panic so like if the guides are not panicking we're good I'm constantly aware of how much I love canoeing but when I actually canoe I've become even more aware of just how much it's one of my favorite things in life I think it's like a feeling of freedom being out on the water too and there's something about the graceful movement of the boat but with the subtlest movements of the oar it's really satisfying you just have to make sure you have a partner that tells you exactly what to do or lets you take over sometimes sorry I just love paddling you can paddle if you want no made yourself clear and so Thomas took full advantage of my hogging the paddle the wizard does it go on there Thomas you look like you've entered next level relaxation is I oh geez Rick so one thing I've noticed about here you've been driving through the southwest and through the Texas and a lot of the bird sounds sounded different out there but here I'm starting to hear a lot more familiar sounds like I'm hearing a lot of red-winged blackbirds which have like this sort of gurgling song those birds they love to just nest around water and kind of perch up on like reeds and stuff and I don't know it's such a nostalgic sound to me because even back in Ohio if you're around a pond with a lot of cattails and reeds you'll find red-winged blackbirds and you'll hear them in the distance singing it was interesting seeing landscapes and hearing sounds that were a little bit more familiar the closer we got to home but of course there were still aspects of the environment that felt alien to us so we've been canoeing around here and we came up to this place where all the grass is flat and it's right next to the river there Bayou here and it makes sense that this is a place the Gators might hang out give some easy access and it goes kind of way back there but look just look at how flat moly grass is here this might be real Gator area after exploring around a bit we got back into the main water lake in the distance - ominous trunks stood tall and then lying in the vegetation we finally saw it an alligator we admired the Gator from a safe distance peddled on by and talked about what we had just seen thankfully these monsters had been pretty docile and allowed us to pass them by put like a replica alligator out here and nobody wouldn't ever know yeah that's so funny cuz I was looking at this doesn't even look real this looks more like a statue of an alligator it looked a lot like a toy alligator like it's funny how accurate the details from a kid playing with the alligator toy is to real life I think alligators are scary creatures then you just see it sitting there bathing in the Sun and you realize that it's just living its own life you know it just it just kind of wants to be left alone and enjoy the weather just like we do

I'm also just so glad that we got to see one because you come to the bayou you really want to see that distinct animal of this sort of environment it's just so cool seeing something that's like straight out of prehistory those have to be like leftovers from the dinosaur age right I think when Spanish settlers first came here they couldn't believe it they thought there were these monsters so when they'd write back I'd say there were giant monsters that lived in the rivers down here we soon peddled our way into Lake Pontchartrain this was actually an estuary where the freshwater of the river mixes with the salt water of the ocean and out here the water was a lot more choppy in part due to the unhindered winds

we decided to dock at a sandy bank to enjoy the scenery and have a snack since we had stayed at a plantation famous for its pecans we were having a homemade pecan pie and a pecan praline mmm sweeter than I expected it's got a nice little like texture or a creamy texture inside this praline is the most decadent thing I've ever tasted I taste exactly how you would imagine it to taste mmm that's they become high is one of my favorite pies for sure anything that comes in something like this there's that bridge we went over to you imagine lying out here at night and seeing the lights all lit up in the disel they'd be cool to camp here I'd just be really scared wake up in my house

all around us the Bayou was teeming with life and in the distance New Orleans could be seen across the bay [Music]

we got in our canoes and paddled back up the bayou

this time we got an even closer look at a couple of Gators bathing in the Sun [Music]

we had initially been so afraid of the alligators so often we think of nature including human nature as being inherently violent competitive and aggressive

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but there are so many examples of nature animals and people getting along cooperating and living in peace with each other

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in a place brimming with as much life as the Bayou of Louisiana it becomes a little easier to appreciate that fact [Music]

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now after our canoe journey we stopped at a Cajun and Creole restaurant for a hearty nor lenes meal got some sort of local sour beer it's delicious it's called Purple Haze I've said before that doses and sour beers objectively tastes like you vomited up fruit but I still really like them aha

I got a wheat beer made locally it's good it's got like a lot of different Oh

Wow it almost tastes like grapefruit juice or something on the menu today was some sausage gumbo delicious raw oysters and some blackened alligator [Music]

slightly screen or chicken that's got a slightly

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probably

it's like a rainbow meet it like keeps changing the more I chew it starts a chicken ends up as beef and pork Nick's the boudin balls I've got rice pork carp and pork liver very very unique taste but very good he's got the rice in it if it meets looks like a meal inside of a fried ball I can eat a lot of these then the biggest most affordable oysters I've ever had did you dress this the way we recommend this is the biggest moisture I have ever seen in my life [Music]

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when I first started eating raw oysters feel like I liked the idea more than the actual food but now I just don't know the taste is so refreshing that's not what you would think of anything ever always it's just refreshing taste like the sea so I put a little Tabasco sauce on I get this Tabasco sauce is yeah Louisiana Hot Sauce suck it up it's really fresh like anderson the most people are scared of some weird slimy discipline but they're pretty good and never had raw we shall see no smell [Music]

put too much horseradish on there so I can't really face it the textures still not my favorite I'll try another no I don't want to waste their oysters it's fine it's more palpable now fried oyster which is weird you think a fried oyster really better I love both but um enjoy

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our stomachs full we left the restaurant and stopped at a nearby campground for the night in the morning we heard the sounds of summer in the air and reflected on the southern environment this whole place feels super nostalgic because wine it feels like summer which is something that I haven't felt in a long time and not only just like the way it looks but also the sights and the smells and the sounds but at the same time it's like since we're in the deep south there's this like slight mystery to it because I'm hearing all these like animal sounds that I don't recognize I've seen trees that don't look too familiar the constant fear of Gators coming up to you at night yeah and it adds to this like sort of mysticism which in a way makes it even more nostalgic because when you have nostalgic memories you just it's just like hazy representation of what summer is that's what this feels like this is the blue sky I've ever seen in my life the green here so different than the red sands of Monument Valley yeah I was thinking as we were driving through the southwest well this sort of landscape looked unique to me again because I've also been out in California for two extra weeks and in a sense it kind of does I mean it's very familiar but it's also it is really strange to see this sort of what we would consider an Ohio at summer we'll see this sort of landscape right now all right well we got one last leg of the journey you guys ready let's do it now it was about a seven-hour drive to Nashville Tennessee as we drove into town we saw billboards advertising honky tonks and the famous Batman skyscraper and today we were having some delicious Nashville hot chicken with our friend Tim Lawson and his daughter Abby of course when you order hot chicken you have to make sure you choose the right level of spicy because last time I tried that a disaster happened in my stomach Oh God so I got the hunt which is two levels below the hottest and it's very delicious and Urban development's after our meal we wandered around town and Tim showed us pictures from one of his recent backpacking trips we took a walk to the Vanderbilt campus to digest all the food we had eaten [Music]

and we had some fun goofing around while we explored

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and I jumped on the opportunity to look for some wild edible plants irregular flowers sound like a mild vegetable taste he's like like a raw green basically used to call rabbit grass that's kind of what it tastes like well it's not really sour but it heads that little like those slight what about the pea pods Nico's desiccated pea pods this is American Linden or basswood and you can just eat the tender leaves just like that this kind of tastes like got a mommy to me cuz I do taste like edamame pretty good after a delightful afternoon he parted ways with Tim and Abbie and made our way to a friend's place to stay the night before turning in we went to Broadway

Nashville's famous honky-tonk street we enjoyed some fantastic live country music which would challenge anybody who says they generally don't enjoy country [Music]

and we had some drinks before calling it a night the next day we were on our way back home we'd spend the final night of our road trip here in Evansville Indiana [Music]

how was it it's literally exactly what it just so happened that my cousins and family friends were having a cookout today it was great to hang out and wind down with some familiar faces food was being prepared inside and we were all excited to eat okay so we've got good old Derrick oh my goodness you already know what it is family there's a pile of wood that needs to be burned all we had to say was Andrew there's a pile of wood that needs to be burned and he said say no more

I'm on it how's it feel it feels like the Midwest

I mean it's I'm not home but it feels like home that's for sure it is literally homes your family I've never met these people before but I've seen them yeah I've seen them and they've seen you like they probably know or some reason they've seen me I'm sorry burgers had all been prepped and on the grill were some marinated chicken kebabs as the food continued sizzling we all continued goofing off and joking around a perfect burger eating evansville is an interesting place I like to call it the Nexus of the universe it has a population of a city but the fact that everybody seems to know each other and is super friendly makes you think that it's small town yeah as far as burning pretty hard right now we had all gotten to know each other in the past whether it was through video games camping or just hanging out and we couldn't think of a more fitting end to our long journey across the u.s. as a crowd thinned out and people went off to sleep we decided to sit around the campfire one more time this was a warm welcome back to the Midway yeah yeah we're as warm as it could be this is the last official night of the road trip though it's been over two weeks since you guys flew out to LA I don't know it's just weird that Lee heart that we drove the whole way yeah I was telling Robby earlier when you make that drive it really makes the us feel a lot smaller we're in that car though you see the changes you deserve every little tree that goes by it's not just like oh look it's red here it's green here there's desert here there's trees here everything kind of just like has a purpose and you can that transition as you go across the country yeah well I think this road trip has tested our friendship and I think it's proven pretty solid yeah any more time maybe not so much but the fact that we've lasted this long is like damn yeah what was your age of your favorite parts of the road trip I think I'm really enjoyed that first night in Alabama else first of all it was beautiful the second of all was like the first night out after Big Sur so I was like really excited to be able to sleep in a dry and just be able to see the stars the Southwest was great but I think of ultimately Louisiana took the cake for me just first being on that plantation and like having that nice cottage to stay in after several nights of camping and like dingy motels and being able to like warm up in that hot tub with some mint julep and then the next day going canoeing having a great meal with like delicious food I don't know anything with canoes and good food takes the cake and also hot tubs or one of my favorite things all they needed to add a charcuterie yeah it's hard for me to pin down one favor I want to say angel's landing though I think that might have I mean you guys think it's experienced that but man it was really something else to get to the top of there after going up like these chains and then getting to see the whole valley below and it literally looked like some sort of bizarro world Yosemite and it wasn't really cool but this is kind of a cop-out answer but my favorite part of the road trip wasn't driving I loved getting in the car and then he's just driving and seeing the scenery change I think my favorite drive was rezaian to Monument Valley and how much distance be covered and the mazes that we saw I'm gonna say Monument Valley was my favorite because the Sun went down it was a violently windy night and then we woke up the next morning to just see because of how flat everything is you just see how the Earth rotates and the Sun stays still and then you can just see the Sun Rise unlike the exact opposite side over that one thing we're forgetting is all of the awesome people we met and like tonight more than anything is a great reminder of that yes I didn't forget yeah well first we met everybody at the LA meet oh this yeah right yeah Warren weren't Fernandez J Matlack burn James Blackburn change like for most such a good time the Parkers are super awesome Tim V the Texan Canada also awesome and awesome yeah then the family yeah the original bunch of hooligans all right guys one more night the last official night of the road trip let's do it about this fire Andrew what are you learning

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it had been a long journey all the way from Los Angeles camping in the rain a Big Sur exploring California's wilderness gambling in Las Vegas driving all across the Southwest and hiking and paddling all around the South now back in the Midwest we were surrounded by familiar friends and family but we had also made so many friends along the way it's easy to see the problems in the world and assume that it's a dangerous place full of dangerous people but if our journey had taught us anything is that no matter where you adventure you'll find people who are incredibly hospitable genuine and caring and if all of us get together overcome our differences and cooperate that's when we can learn from our past and create a better future at the end of the long journey it felt good to get off the road return home and finally recuperate but there are still so many places left to see and so many people to meet before long we'd be back in the wilderness to archive even more of our adventures [Music]

it's not about giving everything away it's not about being selfish it's about finding that balance a steep rise ride always said keep sharing care [Applause]

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Jason bourgeois wants to give a shout out to his brother Sean bourgeois Marty reading this piece of paper for me oh okay um this looks like a receipt to Lowe's chop morning it's piece paper it says um shout out to draw and true it Philippa des Khalil and James Pruitt would like to give a shout out to adventure archives for keeping the adventure alive not now do we have to go back in time and go 88 miles per hour are we gonna have enough road to do that Barney where we're going we don't need roads if it's way as you need could you test but tell me about the hidden scroll you have there I have a secret scroll from Chuck and Cooper send this to my cousin [Music]

I've come from a land far away to deliver this urgent message from Chucky Cooper

ah yes it says happy birthday Tucker also shoutouts to expedition research LLC Jacob Millican trails we hike and Eric Locker and a shout-out to Norman mountain Julie Charley Jo Jo fender and McBride Jim putz and Hong Kong thank you it has been real and has been fantastic awesome and we will see each other again yes well to all the people who know state Parker's but don't know adventure archives please check them out subscribe I'm Henry mental check out state Parkers and subscribe and patreon and comment and like and subscribe what are you waiting for so we are back well I'm back these poor souls still have an extra three hours to go it feels incredible we'll be home my condolences to these guys well hope to not see you guys see you next lifetime The Adventure archives is over okay yeah [Music]

you

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in trouble pleasure