Welcome to “Ear Biscuits,” the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, Link is wearing sunglasses. Well, I’m wearing my Hawaiian vacation glasses, which have a tint that is somewhere between. Oh, come on, they’re sunglasses. Normal glasses, and sunglasses. I mean, they’re sunglasses. But they’re not tinted to the point where I can’t wear ’em in this dimly lit room, and totally see everything I need to see of you. Well, yeah, but I’m just saying but they’re, I mean, they’re lightly tinted sunglasses. Yeah, but I’m trying to make this a part of my life moving forward, because this was my life in Hawaii, on my Maui vacation, which I’m going to tell you all about, Rhett. And you, dear listener. So, are you trying to capture the vacation spirit into more of, is that why you’re wearing the glasses? or is it just like, no, I think I’m gonna become a guy who wears sunglasses inside? How could you tell? Like Elton John. Yeah. Okay. I think I could. Oh, you could do anything you want to. Thank you, ’cause I really like these. But people will draw conclusions, that’s all I’m saying. I really like these glasses, because they’re big and they’re, I mean, they have progressive lenses in ’em. I can read with them, and they’re, you know? They’re indoor, outdoor sunglasses. Well, you’ve made ’em that. You’re definitely wearing them. No, they’re not too dark so that you have to take them off when you come inside, but I’m just acknowledging the fact that it is a choice. Did I break your concentration? It is a choice that, like, if me and you went to a meeting, and there was a guy that we met with, and he was wearing those glasses inside. Yeah. It would be the first thing we talked about after we left the meeting. We’d go, oh, he wears sunglasses inside. That’s what we would do. But if the other parts of that personality lined up in a certain way, then our follow-up would be, but you know what? I think he pulls it off. I am secretly hoping, I didn’t wanna talk about it. If he’s Roy Orbison. If he’s Roy Orbison, yes. Why did Roy Orbison wear sunglasses at all times? Well, I think it was a… I always thought that he was visually impaired, and that was why he wore the sunglasses. Was he? I think he did have some visual impairment, but I just think that he was self-conscious about the way he looked without sunglasses. Are you self-conscious about the way you look without sunglasses? Is that was this is? No. I mean, I’m conscious of what I look like without glasses, and I was constantly reminded of that because I went on vacation with the older version of myself, AKA, my father. Does he wear contacts? No, he has no problem. He has no. Vision issues. Prescription. That’s very unusual for a 70-year-old man. I know. Wow. And he doesn’t have nearly as much gray hair as I do, I got that from my mom. So, you’re gonna tell us all about your vacation. Yeah, I am. Before you tell us about your vacation, we do want to remind you about the fact that we are doing Good Mythical Evening again. If you forgot, how could you? I don’t remember all of it. Good Mythical Evening is when we take all of the constraints that we have to have on ourselves off in order to have, you know, Good Mythical Morning, you guys gotta be like brand safe and friendly, and you gotta be able to do something that you can put on YouTube, but Good Mythical Evening is if you take all the right headedness out of us. And you go buck wild. And you give us some alcohol. Hey, you like to party? That’s what Good Mythical Evening is. Party with us. September 1st, exclusively on Moment House. Get your tickets at goodmythicalevening.com. There’s multiple packages for pre-show, and Good Mythical More, et cetera. So, I wanna tell you all about my vacation. We did go to Maui. You know, I had made the decision to do this trip pre-pandemic, and really, I think I trace it all the way back to your family trip to Scotland, where you took your parents and your brother and his entire family. That really got me thinking, I can do a vacation and bring some of my family along too. I think that would honor them. I think they’d like it. It’s a possibility. So we put into motion this plan. Did anybody break any bones? Nobody broke any bones. Good. Well, I mean, there was one injury. I’ll tell you about it. We put the plan in motion to take my dad and Nancy. And so, once we started filming “Dispatches from Myrtle Beach,” and recording that podcast, which if you wanna listen to his perspective on our vacation, that episode of dispatches is already out, but there’s plenty of stuff that I didn’t get to talk with my dad about that I wanna talk to you about, and I can give you somebody inside scoop, that I didn’t get to in that episode. Oh, okay. I got two podcasts I gotta juggle. Yeah, this is gonna make your life difficult. This is making my life difficult, but, on Dispatches, I kept saying, “Well, dad, if you do a good job, I’m gonna take you to Hawaii.” But really, we had wanted to go for years, it’s just because of the pandemic, we weren’t able to do that. Right. And then also for like Christy’s sister and her husband and their kids, we were like planning another trip to go to Disney with them, that got eradicated with the pandemic too. And we haven’t put those plans back in motion, but we hope to at some point, but just let me tell you, I was telling Christy yesterday, I was like, you know what? I think this Hawaii trip was one of the best vacations I’ve ever been on. Whoa, really? Yeah, it was like the perfect balance of doing stuff, and not having stuff to do. We booked a spot at a resort on Wailea, down there in the Southwestern part of Maui. You ever been to Maui? I have not. I’ve been to the big island and to Kauai, but not. Right. Well, you and I went to Kauai with our families together many years ago, so I was comparing it a lot to Kauai when we were driving around Maui. We stayed at a beach resort. We stayed at this spot where it was big enough for like, dad and Nancy to have a room, me and Chris to have a room, and then the kids to sort things out. So it was like, it was a nice spot. We had space where people could go and retreat into their own zone. When you have a 19 year old and a 17 year old, you want to be able to like give them their own space, so I knew that was key. And then I knew that making plans, but then making non-plans was important, and I think all of that really came to fruition in terms of making this the perfect balance of just a nice, well needed vacation away. Are you like, are you looking at your thigh? What are you doing with your hand down there? I’m just twiddling my thumbs around this thing. Oh, I thought you were looking at your phone, then I saw your phone there. No, I’m twiddling this. Yeah, okay. All right. Just making sure I’m still here. I just didn’t know if you were into what I was saying. Oh, I’m so into it. You’re planning the perfect vacation. I didn’t know if you’re scratching your balls. Just the perfect balance of doing and not doing. I mean, the big question. I’ve been listening the whole time. Honestly was, what is it gonna be like to take dad and Nancy on this thing? Granddaddy and Nana are gonna be around. But you just said it was the best vacation, so do you think it has to do with the fact that they were there? Yeah, that was the big question. Because people, guests change your family dynamic, and often, they change the family dynamic for the best. I have found that when we travel… People were on their better behavior. And when there’s a friend of a, one of the kids brings a friend. Yes. Nobody shows their asses much, you know what I’m saying? Like, nobody just does something stupid, embarrassing, just as a complete dip, because there’s somebody who’s not family there. Yep. So you think that happened? I do think that was the key to it, plus the fact that dad and Nancy are super laid back, like they were super happy to be there. They don’t add stress to the situation. They were along for the ride. Which is a lot to say for, you know, aging parents, I would think. There was no control of anything, energy. It was like, hey, I’m gonna treat you guys to come in on this voyage with us, you know? And you’re gonna love it. And then by the end, the only thing dad said about the halfway point was, “You think maybe I could play golf?” And I was like, “Well, I didn’t know if it was too late, dad, I didn’t set anything like that up.” ‘Cause I don’t play golf, honestly. I’m sorry if that’s a little selfish. I should have golfed. But that did work out, and as he talked about on dispatches, that was a highlight for him is taking Lincoln golfing. But, yeah, I mean, we really did have a good time, and it was a test of our relationship to have him there, ’cause you are living under the same roof with these people that you never lived with, you don’t know how it’s gonna be. But they were cool, they were laid back. They were having a good time, and so I’m happy to report that it all worked out. He’s still your dad. Also, nine days was like a generous amount of time. So, just in terms of like stipulations. Really? I was planning on 14 days, 2 weeks is what that is, Rhett. So you ready to come home at day nine? I was. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say that’s pretty typical. When you’re in the same place. Yeah. Were you eating the same breakfast every day? The breakfast got old. It was a good breakfast, like. Nine days of the same breakfast, yeah. I mean, I’d say obviously these are privileged problems, but I’m just saying. At a certain, yeah. At a certain point, I wasn’t really getting outta bed for the breakfast, you know what I’m saying? Right. The cool thing about going to Hawaii is that there’s three hours behind. So, when I decided to wake up, it was like early in the morning. There’s something… I felt this like superiority of like, being up so early on vacation, like literally seeing the sunrise. Every day? What time are we talking about? The first few days, like. Just because it was the time change. Yeah, I mean, I get up at 5:30, and it feels like 8:30. And like, I went out there and did some paddle boarding. There was a beach right out there, and you could go out there, and just get some snorkel gear, and go around this little reef-ish type area, and there were sea turtles right there, dude. I’ve never freaking snorkeled with a sea turtle. Did you touch ’em? ‘Cause that’s a $10,000 fine. I did not touch ’em. I just looked at ’em, and they were, some of them were like resting on the bottom, just sleeping, and some of them were just like floating. And you could just like swim around them, and they were just like used to it. They didn’t care. They were happy, as a pig in a blanket. Any waves for paddle boarding? Not right there. Driving around to other sections of the island, there was, I saw some people, a lot of people surfing, and some people doing some standup paddleboard surfing, but it early enough it was common enough to do some standup paddle boarding, but not really with surfing. That really wasn’t the opportunity right there, in front of us. But, I gotta… I hate the dog Maui. The beaches were beautiful… But it’s just not the same vibe as Kauai. Kauai was like, so Jungle-y, and in like, these like dramatic green mountains, just like exploding out of the ocean everywhere. And there’s like, sheer drop-offs. Maui is more of like, you got this one, there’s like two islands that are kind of connected basically into one island, so you can easily imagine how they were each made by their own volcano. But there was a one inactive, I don’t even think you’d call it dormant, it’s just over. Nothing else to see here, it’s a done volcano. It’s nowhere near active. Spent. Haleakala that formed the majority of Maui, and so it’s just looming in the center. No matter where you drive around, you look and it’s like, there’s this cloud, it’s like this one mountain volcano that just goes up into the clouds. But it has to be more lush than the big island. Well, I haven’t been there… But the big island is like just, there’s like very large swaths of it that are just barren landscape. A lot of it was, of Maui was farmed for pineapples, I believe. So there was a lot of it that was just like, deforested. And so now there’s like an old sugar plantation, and there’s like remnants of where they farmed pineapples, but it just kinda leaves it more of… The focal point is the one volcano, it’s not like in Kauai where you’re driving through these undulating roads around these huge mountains. It’s just not that type of a hiking destination place. Now, on the other side of the island from us, there’s a town called Hana, and then there’s this one, two lane undulating road that you can drive. And you basically takes you… The road to Hana? The road to Hana, it takes almost all day. And I was reading about that, and like, basically marriages die on this road. Yeah, and people get car sick. And people get car sick. Yeah, especially the Neals, you gotta watch out. Everybody in the Neal family gets car sick. I mean, if I go around three curves, I’m like, Christy, don’t you be on your phone. Like, the amount of times on any type of road trip I’ve had to pull over, and had Christy just open the door, run a few feet, and just vomit is just like, I mean, I could sketch it. I could went in detail, I’ve seen it so many times. Well, please don’t. So I was like, there ain’t no way we’re going on this road to Hana. So the, I mean… It would have a day of us doing something, and then a day of us chilling out. Day one, take a look at dad. This is day one? Day one, baby. This is within a few hours of us getting to Maui. He’s just laying out on a lounger. You realize this is your future? Sleeping. This is my future. Actually, in many ways, this is your present. He makes the same exact face that you make when you fall asleep. Yeah, his mouth is open. And I assume. Like the picture you take of me every time I falls sleep in on a plane. He falls asleep as quickly as you, I assume. You see that necklace he is wearing? That’s what they give you when you show up. Like, that’s literally how quick he just… Drank a drink. He went in vacation mode, so fast, I love it. And, the one thing that- Had he been to Hawaii, ever? He had been to Hawaii-uh before, yeah. I was gonna ask, does he still call it Hawaii-uh? It’s the same place, but yeah, that’s where he’s been. So many years ago, they went before, but like, dude’s got a lot more hair on his body than me too. Has he always? Always. So you don’t have that to look forward to. He’s had a lot more hair than this, too. It’s kind of died down. It’s petered out a little bit. Oh, that’s something to… See, here’s me wearing my sunglasses, I’m awake. I can see that. But my mouth is open. So, there’s a number of things that we did that I’ll tell you about, but first, I mean… Let’s talk more about- Good Mythical Evening? Good Mythical Evening, did we tell you about it? We already told you about it, we just wanna tell you some more about it. What else can we tell you about it? I know that we started to plan some of the segments. We’ve planned most of them, and I think that- They’re different. Maybe a notch up from last year. It’s totally different than last year, but then kind of, it’s totally the same, but then totally fresh. No repeats. No repeats. We’re trying different things this year. Things are gonna get outta hand. Things are gonna get memorable. It was a once in a lifetime experience last year- That we’re gonna do twice. That we decided to now do again, and potentially annually, if you guys keep wanting us to do it. If you keep showing up and buying tickets for it, we’ll keep doing it. Goodmythicalevening.com, now this is available exclusively on Moment House when it streams live, and remember you can, if you’re a member of the Mythical Society, mythicalsociety.com, you can see us get ready for the show, which will involve some… You know. Sometimes the party starts before the party starts. Taking in certain things. Yeah. Yeah. And then there’s a Good Mythical More, you can buy that as part of a ticket, and you can get an exclusive t-shirt, like check out all the ticket packages at goodmythicalevening.com. So, one day we decided to go to the top of the volcano, because I found out that you can drive all the way up there. From where we were, it’s like an hour and a half drive. And yeah, there’s a couple of places where it gets kinda a lot of some switchbacks, and I was like, listen, we’re not doing the road to Hana, but we gotta go to the top of the Haleakala. Haleakala. It takes me a couple of times to get it. So, we’re driving up there and I’m like- How do you prepare the family for this? They’re gonna get car sick. We can park. Well, I’m just like… Do they all take ginger? Yeah, we got the ginger chews, and we’ve got some Dramamine. Do they all get in the front seat? ‘Cause you know, Christy’s gotta stay in the front seat. Christy’s the front seat. She’s the queen. But what are the, ’cause I mean, all the kids get car sick too. We rented a minivan, and then… You put ’em on top? ‘Cause if you get the wind in the face, a lot of times, that’ll help. I mean, it’s mainly just giving them a little bit of that anti nauseous stuff, and making sure that they’re not on their phones when it gets curve. So, it worked. It did work. And the other thing I was concerned about is like, is it a long hike? But no, you drive up to the top, and then there’s a couple places where you can just look out. Now, the thing that people rave about, and you have to get reservations to do this, is to go up at like… Sunset. Four o’clock, it was sunrise. Sunrise. You know, you’re at like 10,000 feet, and it’s, you’re in the middle of this island, and you can watch the sunrise, and you can see all these other Hawaiian islands. Not every single one of them, but, I mean, we didn’t. I was like, we’re not getting up that early. Yeah. So we didn’t do that. You can also watch sunset when I was like… If we get up there, that’ll be a victory. So we drive up there. I mean, and we’re like, man, there’s so many clouds. What’s? We’re not gonna see anything. But it was so high that we went above the clouds. Oh, wow. And it was pretty amazing, even at the middle of the day. You got pictures of that, above the clouds? So we’re driving up there, and you don’t have to hike too much in order to… You get out of the car, and you’re kind of just at an overlook, you know? And there’s an observatory up there, and stuff you can see. And I was like, well, because, I don’t wanna make dad and Nana have to do a bunch of walking and hiking. So like we get out and we’re like, all right, you guys can go in the information center slash museum, and then I’m gonna take this trail and just hike up a little bit further to this top point. So, me and Lily, it was cold up there too. Like, I had to put on a coat. You know, I’m cold natured. And then we walk all the way up there, and then as we’re coming back down, here comes Granddaddy and Nana walking up there, and they say, “Well, if we’re gonna come all this way, we’re gonna do this.” I was like, good Lord, don’t fall. I don’t want to have a Rhett’s mama breaking her ankle situation. Yeah, right, yeah. You don’t get that free Scottish healthcare when you’re in Hawaii. Oh, you didn’t have to pay for any of that? No. I remember that. Yeah, you don’t get that in Hawaii. We did have to like, get more stuff done when she got back to the U.S., but I mean, the Scottish part was free. How’s her ankle now, just as a side note? Is there any residual like, long-term effect? Like when a thundercloud comes up, her ankle hurts? There is like residual pain at times. Not debilitating by any means, but definitely, it was a setback. Just one of those things, it’s just like, oh, you know? My ankle hurts a little bit today kind of thing. So I don’t recommend you breaking your mom’s ankle on a vacation, or your dad’s, or your stepmom. Everything about my dad, you know, I was watching him closely to see my future. Yeah. You know? ‘Cause it’s like, I’m proud of the fact that he could do that little hike, and that he could enjoy himself on vacation, and that he could take a nap with his mouth gaped open. It’s like, these are things that I can look forward to. Yeah, you can do that. You know? And then the next morning after we get back from Haleakala, we’re like sitting at the breakfast buffet, and I like, I like caught Lily’s eye. And then I asked, I was like, “Granddad and Nana, have you just ever been to the top of a volcano?” And they were like, “No, I sure would like to go.” And I was like, “That’s where we went yesterday.” I was like, “What?” I was like, I didn’t ask any follow-up questions. I just thought it was hilarious. You didn’t say anything else? I said, “That’s where we went yesterday.” And they were like, “Oh, oh yeah. Okay, you’re right.” It was just like, what? Do you not remember? Did they think it was a ride? Maybe the way I asked it. Like Soarin’ Over California in Disney? I mean, they probably went to the orange field. I think when I asked, would you like to go to the top of a volcano? They pictured an erupting volcano. Of course, Joe versus the volcano. So it was like, it didn’t really connect to like, totally dormant volcano. But I’m like, yeah, that’s… Are you with me? Are you here for this? Do you… They had a good time. Whether they remembered it or not is another question. I’ve been to a non dormant volcano. I remember. I remember you guys got in a huge argument, ’cause you were hiking to it. Any sort of hiking, yeah. I mean, boy, it’ll… Jessie and I will find a way. That’s why I didn’t do any hiking, even though I really wanted to, no hiking. Yeah, I mean you had to do, you gotta plan better than we did. It was a little too last minute, but yeah. I mean non dormant volcanoes are even more fun. I know, I would really love to do that, which is like a big highlight of going to the big island. Yeah, if it’s flowing, I don’t know if it’s flowing right now. It was flowing when you went though. Oh, yeah. Not like crazy, not like a river of lava going into the ocean, but just like, oh, there it is, bubbling along hot. Hot. Eventually get into the ocean, and it’s steaming up. I don’t wanna say that Maui wasn’t beautiful, it’s just the beaches were really the highlight. And as it turns out, scuba diving is a big thing on Maui. There’s lots of destinations where you can really enjoy scuba diving. Well, and that’s why, and that’s what you’ve been preparing yourself for. Yeah, that’s not… I actually didn’t know that. It kind worked out, but like, yeah. I was like, we’re gonna go to Hawaii, and then I was like, yeah, let’s really get going, get into gear on this. Like, getting certified for scuba, looking forward to the trip, but as it turns out like that is a highlight of being on Maui even more so than Kauai. Like Kauai, there is you can scuba dive probably in any Hawaiian island, but like Maui is actually, according to the people we went with, ’cause we went on two different days. Maui’s the best. And of course, this is just me and Lincoln because we got certified leading up to the trip, and this is a big part of what I was looking forward to. And, you know. And you were living basically the “White Lotus” life, you know? You were the dad in “White Lotus”. Which, great show, and it really started to hit close to home when, yeah. It’s one thing to like, yeah. And weren’t you like, relatively close to the resort where they actually… They filmed that at Four Seasons in Maui. Yeah, we were at the Andaz Resort, which is like next door to it. So you were next door to the set? Yes. Doing the same thing with your teenage son? Yeah. And they had that Outrigger canoe that you could reserve and go out on that too. When we did a trip a day trip one day… I think, yeah, that was when some other members of the family did the Outrigger trip. Did you have an existential crisis? No, I did not. Well, the existential crisis was during the luau. I mean, they had booked one night we go to the luau, so I’ll get back to the scuba diving. But the “White Lotus” of it all to me was really that being at the luau, and kind of feeling this like, okay, I’m paying this high ticket price as a tourist to come here and eat your pork, and like, entertain me with your history, you know? Yeah. It felt… Imperialist. It felt a little… I just felt a little uncomfortable. I mean, especially thinking of the “White Lotus” of it all, and like, it was the daughter who was like woke and like laying into ’em, and the daughter’s friend who was like, seeing the other side of it. I didn’t know exactly how to feel about it. But it did make you think, it made you think twice about it, so you didn’t just blindly enjoy it. The luau was, it was pretty educational about like, the way that their, the Pacific Islanders, Hawaiian settlers, they would fish, and all the ingenuity of the things they would do. But yeah, it’s like… Yeah, it just felt… Yeah, I don’t know what to say. It felt very American. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You felt like a colonizer. It’s a good show though, because it puts, it just… It puts it out there. Yeah, I mean, it’s an excellent show for that. And the music is great too. It made you have a more difficult time enjoying your Hawaii vacation. Right, mission accomplished. Yeah, right, yeah. Yeah. That’s all I’ll say about that, but the scuba diving of it all, you know, we planned a trip in like day three or day four, and then we skipped a number of days, and then went to a different place. So the first day we went out on a boat with a group of people who were all scuba diving to Molokini Crater. You can see this like strip of land out in between our beach and the next island over, Lanai. So it’s half of this crater that- That’s the one that like the Microsoft guy owns most of it, right? The Oracle guy. Oracle guy. Yep, he owns, basically owns all of it. That island used to be a do pineapple farm, like the whole thing, and then he bought the whole thing. And then there’s one resort on there, and then there’s people who live at the top of the island, and then they all work at the resort, basically. We were actually gonna stay there, but Christy didn’t want to take a second plane ride, because she hates flying on plane so much. And I was like, you know what? That’s fine. I don’t think there’s anything to do over there, anyway. You can like rent a Jeep and like drive the Jeep around all over the island, which would’ve been fun. But, yeah. We actually went close on our second scuba diving, but the first one was Molokini Crater, and… It was the first time for everything, except technically diving. Like diving off of a boat, diving with a group, like having an orientation. Them getting your tanks ready, and everything. Everything was new, but they made it really easy, and you kind of… A guy jumps in the water with you, and there was a group of like six of us, and then Lincoln and I were of course buddies. So even though you have a guide, it’s really up to, like, you have to be responsible for your own safety. You can’t depend on anybody else, some guide to make sure that you’re safe, and to check everything for you, you gotta be responsible for yourself. That’s why there’s so much training and certification, but then you learn to rely on a buddy to stay together, and to like, keep an eye on each other and communicate, and help each other. Like, worst case, if you needed to get air, like if you run outta air or something goes wrong, like they can give you their spare air, and that type of stuff, and help you get back to the surface. So like, Lincoln and I buddied up, but we were in a group that was like, you get in the water, and then you descend to like 30, 40, 50 feet. And then on this first dive, he’s taking us around on the outside of the crater, and it’s, I mean, it’s like flying beside a mountain, you know? You’re just suspended in water, in this, like, and it’s just a sheer, I would say it’s like a 60 degree slope that just, whew, just goes down, and it seems like it just goes down forever. Like, if you didn’t watch yourself, you could just swim down to like a crazy depth. What’s some maximum depth that you went to? That we went to? 55 feet. That’s pretty deep. Yeah, and so like on your left side, as we’re like curving around, it’s just this whole wall of just underwater mountain side. And there’s like some creatures that he would point out, and stuff like that. But then on the right, it just goes into like deep blue. It’s just, whew, like straight out, straight down. It’s just like, you just get this sense of just being so small. And like a shark’s gonna come out of the blue depths? And a shark swam out of the blue depths, and like, I would say it was 40 feet away, but yeah, it was like a- How big, what kind? A white tipped shark. There may be another word in there. I can’t remember, but like a white tipped shark, I would say it was probably six feet long, was just swimming out there. And, at a separate point I looked out there, and there was a big ray, not a manta ray, but an an eagle ray is what they’re called. So it’s like, hey, this is what I was… This is kind of what you hope for, you know? You’re swimming out there and seeing this freaking wildlife, you’re seeing a shark, you’re seeing an eagle ray, just like… How big was that? Just doing it’s thing. Probably five feet wing span on this thing. I mean, it was, again, it might have been 40 feet away, ’cause we were staying close to the edge. And then if you, he said at the end of this thing, there’s a shark cleaning station. Shark cleaning station? It’s not where a bunch of scuba divers go around a shark and just start scrubbing it with brushes. But it’s where like little fish would, a shark would go there and- Get the little, yeah. He knows that these little fishes are gonna eat this stuff I’m covered in. It’s like making my own clean. Did you see this in action? We ran out of air before we got to that. Everybody, or just you and Lincoln? Just me and Lincoln. This is our first dive. You’ve been breathing too hard. You’re breathing too hard. Well, actually, I looked around and I couldn’t find Lincoln. I’m like, oh crap. You lost your buddy? Where is Lincoln? And they train you, like if you lose your buddy… Panic. Yeah, just panic. Just panic. Just start sucking in water. Crap your pants. It’s over for both of you. Ink, and just do the human version of an ink, which is like sharting. No, it’s like, you’re supposed, if you can’t see him, you look up, you look down, and then you start to ascend, and you look around again and again. But I just looked up, and I could see him up there 30 feet, and he was already going up, ’cause he was like, very low on air, and he kind of got a little scared, and instead of swimming over and tapping me on the shoulder and telling me, let’s go up. Here’s the signal. Violated the buddy system. He got a little ahead of himself and he was like, oh crap, I gotta get outta here. But you still have to ascend at a slow rate. So how long, approximately? 50 or 55 feet. I think our dive was like 36 minutes, and there were probably people who were down there for 45 minutes. No, but once you realized that you’re low on air, like, what’s the minimum amount of time that you need in order to ascend 60 feet back to the surface? I should know that, shouldn’t I? Isn’t that part of like the math and stuff? Oh, I don’t do math. But, well you don’t let it get below 500, and then there’s no issue. Like, when you’re down there at 50 or 60 feet, it’s like, yeah, you’re not gonna have any problem. It’s like, once you get to that, but like, if you forget about it, then I actually don’t know the answer to that. Don’t let that happen. Well, you might need to pay attention, or read the book.. Listen man, I bet Lincoln knows. But Lincoln, well he is doing well with this. Like, he’s not… He’s enjoying it. He’s not scared. A lot of it was me watching him swim around, and just getting enjoyment outta the fact that he was enjoying it. The fact that I had an idea to do something, and I got him to put in the work, and then he’s loving it. It was one of the highlights of the trip. From basically just like “White Lotus”, except you succeeded. You succeeded in what that dad… That dad was like trying to get his son to do something, to connect with him, but not really succeeding, but you actually pulled it off. It worked on our account. Yeah. Yeah. The second trip we did, we went with a different outfit. We had to drive further, and then get on a different boat that went to Lanai. So we’re like, we get to go around that island and see the one resort on the island, and then how barren it is, and how wild it is. And then- Is it like, trees? Is it all trees? There’s not a lot of trees, no, because they clear cut everything for pineapples. Pineapples. So now it’s just, it’s more deserty, like the type of brush and everything on it, and our side of Maui was that way too. When you go to the other side, there’s like a tremendous amount of rainfall, and it’s a totally different ecosystem. Probably a lot more like the Kauai experience. I just didn’t take the road to Hana, so I can’t speak to it. That’s basically what I’ve heard is that Maui has… It’s the best combination of everything that you could get on the other islands, so. But you didn’t go to that side, so you didn’t get to see it. Yeah, I didn’t go to that side. I think that is my one regret. But that second dive trip was even better than the first one to Molokini Crater, because we went to what are called The Cathedrals. You’ve got these volcanic rock formations where there’s all these crevasses, crevasse, and tunnels. We jump out of the boat. Can’t go on those. We get our group together, and the first thing we did was swim down to about 35 feet, maybe 30 feet, and then I saw that some people in our group, all of a sudden, they turn on flashlights. I’m like, well damn, I don’t have a flashlight. This wasn’t discussed? They mentioned some about a flashlight on the boat. Like if you have a flashlight, blah, blah, blah, blah. And once they said, if you have a flashlight, I don’t have one. Okay. So we start going through a bonafide tunnel, a tunnel that ended up being probably, from wall to wall, not much more than 10 feet. How long is this tunnel? 10 feet in diameter, and then I would say, it might have been 25 feet in length. It opened up to more of big ocean. Yeah. Yeah. Not one of these endless caves that you die in. No, it wasn’t going down. It was totally horizontal, and like, it was the first thing we went through, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. The main thing you’re learning to do when you’re learning to scuba dive is like, is to regulate your buoyancy, regulate your depth in the water using your flotation, like adding air or removing air from it so that you’re not, in this case, scraping against the top or the bottom of the tunnel. It was so much fun. And then after that, we’re going down into these like other little, little archway tunnels, like swimming through all of those type of rock formations. Oh, it was such a payoff to the work that we put in to get certified. I can’t wait to go scuba diving again, man. I’m trying to plan a trip now for me and Lincoln, I asked Chase if he wanted to go, and he’s the only other person at Mythical I know of who’s scuba certified to go out to the Channel Islands. Yeah. And do that, but there were dudes with beards, man. You’re saying you don’t wanna do it because you got this mustache. No, no, I’ve been- You gotta figure it out. I’ve heard many people say that you could figure it out. You would absolutely love it. But I… In the little bit of snorkeling that I’ve done, when I like used the stuff that they said to use, like the silicone-like stuff, it was just like I have to get somebody who actually knows what to do, to tell me what to do versus just going on the internet and… You know. It’s totally, I mean, you gotta figure it out. Like, Shepherd’s a strong swimmer, right? Yeah. He would love it. Yeah, he’d be into it. You know I’m not a strong swimmer, it’s not about that, but like you’re so comfortable in the water. Yeah, I mean, I’m definitely intrigued by it. I mean, I was thinking about going spear fishing with a friend that does that, because that’s more just like, put on the snorkel and hold your breath for a long time, which I can do. Yeah, you can do that. No, I’m definitely interested in it. And I think Shepherd, I know shepherd would be into it. He would be like, “Sure, I’ll do it.” Yeah, it’s… I mean, and I wasn’t, I still am not comfortable enough to like completely enjoy myself, because, again, everything and taking out a boat and going with a guide, and like people giving you orientation and all that, everything’s still so new. And then you get in the water, and you’re like, you’re learning how to use the dive computer, and how to follow people, but not too close. Everything’s kind of, you’re figuring it out, and I… Yeah, so there was a lot on my mind, but my instructor told me, he was like, after you get a certain amount of dives under your belt, then it becomes this total zen experience. You stop thinking about all of it. Where you can be… Being in the water is totally being in the moment, and he said, and when you come back out on land, you look at the world differently. You start to look vertically, like we tend to work in like a horizontal plane, you know? ‘Cause we’re not birds, but he said you start to bring more of that back into your experience on land. Have you been looking up more? You start looking up more. Took a walk from my house, and I was like, oh, look at the trees up there. Wonder if I could fly up there to them. Just.. Just kind of float up. It’s… Don’t get any ideas. It’s great, man. That’s the whole nother thing is to get those backpack fans. Maybe I get into that. What do you mean a back? Oh, you’re talking about like a jet pack? Powered parachute. Oh. And Jessie won’t let me know. She’s afraid I’m gonna die. This is better than that. There’s a lot more freedom, and there’s not like propelling. It’s safer. It’s gotta be safe. It’s definitely safer. We also did an ATV trip, which was not nearly as good as the ATV trip that like, when we were in Kauai and we went with the boys, and we were like in those quads and we went through this like bamboo forest, and we went to this place that had a waterfall. It was good. Well, this was on an old pineapple farm. There’s so many of ’em in Maui, and they were given permission to turn it, since they’re not growing pineapples anymore… Who grows the pineapples now? They’re not growing any they are or in Lanai, I don’t know. I think they’re all grown in a lab, man. So you got this ATV course, and there’s like all of this black plastic coming up. And so they stop and explain at a certain point, there are layers upon layers of black plastic. You see like gardens where people would plant stuff and like to keep the weed. It’s part of the farming. Keep the weeds out, they’ll like poke a hole, and plant something, and then they’ll water underneath the plastic so it conserves water. And it was a farming technique that actually destroyed the land there, where what they would do is after a season of pineapples, then they would like till it up, and then put another layer of plastic, and just do that again and again to the point where it’s like, you go 8, 10, 12, 16 feet down, and it’s just layers of plastic where they would just decimate the land. People do so much stupid stuff. I know, it was so depressing. But the cool thing about the ATV place we went was that like, they’re rehabilitating the land. There’s no way you can pull out all that plastic, but what you can do is that you can replant trees on top of it. And like, there was a whole part that they had never planted pineapples up on the hill, and so there were still a forest up there. And they said, look up there, you see all the rain clouds above the forest? He was like the reason why they planted pineapples here is because all of that rain was down here. And what I didn’t realize was that once that the forest actually. It’s making the rain. It makes the rain, and it draws in all the moisture. And so then when you cut it down thinking, oh, we’re gonna take use of all this moisture to make pineapples, all of a sudden the rain disappears, so they discover that the hard way. So there’s a lot of rehabilitation that’s going on, but it doesn’t make for the most fun ATVing experience, because the landscape was not that dynamic. Right. So, between I would recommend going on an ATV in Kauai, but not on that part of Maui, at least. It just wasn’t the most fun thing we’ve ever done. Were you getting any good food? You haven’t talked about the food yet. Besides the breakfast. We ate some good fish. But you don’t seem much impressed. Yeah, I don’t… The food wasn’t a big thing for me. You don’t really like sushi. Nope. So you’d miss… The kids ate some sushi. Christy ate some sushi, but nah, that’s not for me. I mean, the one thing we did experience, and dad said this was one of his favorite things was we went to a place called coconutinformation.com, which if that’s not the catchiest name for something. That sounds like a website to me. It sounds like a website, but there’s this guy, Ryan, who he has this outpost. Information about coconuts. And he’s planted all these coconuts, and it was an enthralling experience going, our travel agent told us to go because Guy Fietti went there, and so you can see coconut information featured with Guy Fiette on one of his shows on Food Network. So like, after that aired, we like booked well in advance to go see Ryan, and hear about his coconuts. And he gave us this whole education on coconuts, just like, the age of the coconut determines what the coconut milk tastes like. How fascinating is coconut information, really? We had a lot of fun. It was one of your dad’s favorite things. My dad said it was one of his favorite things. Okay. I had a good time. It was good. Did they put alcohol in the coconuts? No, it was just… It was just information. It was just, well, and it was coconut milk, and we took the coconut meat and we made it into noodles. We did that, so it was like a little bit of a cooking class. But you don’t even like coconut. I don’t like dried coconut on like a cake, but you know what I love? Coconut water. That’s what I discovered. It’s magical. It’s got like electrolytes. You discovered coconut water on this trip? No, I drank coconut water in Thailand when I went there. The guy would hack open a coconut, and I’d stick a straw down in it, and drink it right there. It’s just delightful. Along with some corn. Yeah. But… Once I got back home, I started buying coconut water. It’s great. A lot of electrolytes, Rhett. Do you like coconut water? Yeah, we have it regularly in like the outside fridge next to the pool. Gotta keep it real cold. Did you… and forgive me if you talked about this on “Dispatchers from Myrtle Beach,” but given the fact that your dad is into being recognized, did you meet any Mythical Beasts while you two were together? Because that seems like that would be a pretty cool experience for some Mythical Beasts? Well, the podcast was so fresh. Like, I think episode one had come out while we were there, but there were a couple of, I actually, I think he was disappointed, because instead of him getting recognized, I was just getting recognized. Well, hey, I’m his dad. He never said that, he would just… At a couple of times, he would be behind me, and I would be like, at the breakfast buffet when we exited, I was like, where’s dad? And then a few minutes later, he comes up and he’s like, well, there was people back there that recognized you, but you were gone, so I went over and talked to him. Got a picture and everything. Like, dad, you gotta keep moving sometimes. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. He was like, why didn’t you stop? Like, well, how can I? So, he took my leftovers basically. But, yeah. So, I did get recognized a decent amount. So maybe next time don’t go on vacation together. It’ll be the two of you. Yeah. Getting recognized together. Yeah. But I’m trying to think, which was more formative to our relationship, us going on vacation together, or us making our podcast together? The one, two punch of both of those things has like really opened up our relationship. But you’re saying that there’s no fights, no conflict, no conflict to note? No… Well, I think the key was we let- Even between the kids? We let Lily do what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it. Like, we gave her her space. But a lot of times kids, you know, the age difference between Lincoln and Lando, like, I don’t know. So, Lincoln and Lando being, 17 and 12, right? Yep. Which is essentially the same age difference as Lock and Shepherd. Right. Do they do where they’d be like, “Hey, Lincoln and Lando are going to do this thing together, they’re going across the resort, the two of them together,” like, is that a thing that happens? A little bit, like a couple of times they would do that. ‘Cause kids, if they don’t do that, then they’ll get bored. Yeah. Lincoln was meeting other people his age, like he was the one who was making other friends. Did he make any romantic connections? He didn’t, he did not make any romantic connections. If he did, I don’t think he’d want be talking about it. Well, he wouldn’t tell you anyway, probably. He probably wouldn’t. You don’t know what he did. Every time we’d walk around the resort, he’d be like, “What’s up?” Like, he would know people. He’d know people over here, he’d know this guy over here. And then one morning I opened up the fridge and there’s like beers in there that we didn’t. I was like, where does this beer come from? My friends, my people. Yeah, Lincoln was like, “My friends, they were leaving, and they offered me the beer.” And I was like, “What?” He was like, “I didn’t drink any of it, I got it for you.” I just put it in the fridge so you and granddad could drink it. Yeah, he did. And then what about Lando? I mean, because at that age, like, I’m talking about my vacation next week, but like, Shepherd being by himself, essentially with us as a 13 year old, there’s a, you know. Yeah, Lando needed a little bit more. There was a little bit of a boredom thing that ended up happening. That was one of the factors, like, Lando got a little bored, you know? I think once you get to be a teenager, you can retreat into your phone a little bit, and you kind of wanna watch your shows, and just be on your own, or make your own friends. Yeah. But, yeah, so it’s like Lando is at kind of a tough age where it was like, let’s do something together. So it’s like, alright, let’s go snorkeling, let’s play, we had a corn hole set out there. We did some stuff like that. So like, kept him engaged. And I think that’s why the nine days of it all was like, good, versus it pushing it too far, or going to a second location. Yeah. Which would’ve been way too much. But the injury, I forgot to tell you about the injury. Yes. Dad normally throws Nana under the bus on dispatches, ’cause he’s always dishing some dirt, but I guess I’ll have to do this one, ’cause he didn’t talk about. She was putting her leg up on the sink in order to, I think to shaver leg, or something. And she like, she fell over and hit hit her, like, her shin, like super hard, and got a big old welp. I was like, oh, is this it? This was like day two of vacation. I’m like, oh man, is she gonna be able to walk? I think she was in a lot of pain, but she didn’t wanna, she was a trooper. She just kinda went along with it. We iced it, and the she was okay. Put some ice on it, walk it off. She was okay, so there was no break, but that was the injury I was referring to was that. But she was okay after that, she was able to walk around? She was able to walk around, but I think she, for the next day she was in a lot of pain. And speaking of pain, and you know what? This can be my recommendation, ’cause I think this is my wreck this week. Oh, yep. When you’re going on a beach vacation, and you wanna do a little spa treatment, especially if you’re like me and you want to get a massage. Well in advance I was like, I’m gonna book a massage. Me and Christy are gonna do a massage. I’m gonna give dad and Nancy a massage. They’re gonna love it. If you’re gonna do that on a beach vacation, do it on day one or day two. Don’t even wait to day three or day four, because what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna get sun burnt, and then you’re gonna have this like, really nice spa treatment that it’s gonna turn into torture. Like I didn’t get sunburned, but Christy did, even my dad got sunburned, I couldn’t believe it. I was like- They got sunburnt… On day one. Really? When my dad’s sitting out there with his mouth gaped open, just drinking up. I mean, this is like vacation etiquette. I know. You gotta sunscreen up, son. I know, but like, and Lincoln had never gotten sunburned in his life, apparently, because he was asking me, “Well, Dad, what’s what’s gonna happen?” I was like, “You’re gonna hurt, son, you’re gonna hurt.” Now, I didn’t get him a massage, so he didn’t have to worry about it. But like, the third morning I was like, “How’d you sleep?” He was like, “I couldn’t sleep. Everywhere I turned,” I was like, “Yeah, you got sunburned.” Well, he learned a lesson. And then whenever later on in the week, like towards the end of the vacation is when it’s like, he wasn’t in pain anymore, but it started to peel, and he was like, “Dad.” Am I going to die? I was like, “What?” “Will it grow back?” “What’s gonna happen.” Just one of the several layers of skin that will never grow back. Yeah, I was like, dude, you’ll be fine, but this is the best way to learn a lesson. But like, even Christy with all her years of like, knowing how to like, not get sunburned, I was like, man, you just, you just totally put your whole massage in jeopardy. How did it work out? She had to get one of those like, oh, barely touch me massages. Oh, really? Yeah. That’s sucks. But you don’t pay her by the pressure, you pay by the time. That’s right. You know what I’m saying? So I’m like, hey, listen. I was telling y’all to slather up. But I think the key is if you’re getting a massage on a beach vacation, get it right when you get there. Or just wear sunscreen. Or get it day two. There’s ways around this. And then if you gotta work that base tan, you can do it after that. So, again, it was a great trip. Honestly, I feel like not a lot of sensational stuff to report. I think that kind of wraps it up for me here with my Maui trip, but I think the best vacations, maybe they don’t make for the best podcast. I don’t know. Well, I don’t know. We’ll even keel. We’ll find out next week, because my vacation sucked. Oh yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that’ll make for an interesting podcast. Yeah, I legitimately at one point said, “I hate this vacation.” Wow. Yeah, in front of my whole family. So we can talk about… That’s a good example. We can talk about how I got to that point. See, you threw a tantrum. Maybe my dad should have been on your vacation, so you wouldn’t have thrown a tantrum. You hated it? Actually. Dude, I’m sorry. No, let me just say that there was some circumstances which I would get into next week that made it not as enjoyable as it could, and there was a moment in which I said that, but there were some highlights that I think ultimately maybe redeemed it at least to some degree. I’m excited to talk about it, but it definitely was not one of my best vacations. Better to have a good story than in a good time. Yeah, well, I’ve got that. But I had a good time. Wish you were there, man, but, it’s okay that you weren’t. Seems like you needed to have a crappy vacation. I can’t be everywhere. Although, I mean, how many times were you asked, “Where’s Rhett?” Because I got asked where is Link at least 10 times over the past, you know, over the course of two weeks. Oh, yeah, every time I got recognized. Where’s Link? Probably having a better time than me. Like, top of the volcano. It was a big group from Kansas who they were taking a cruise from across every Hawaiian island, and they said that they were freaking out when they saw me at the top of the volcano, and they were like, “We were listening to ‘I’m on Vacation’ on repeat as a family, and right before this, and now I’m seeing you.” And they’re like, “Where’s Rhett?” And I was like, “He’s coming up the mountain.” Like, that’s what I would tell people. He’s right behind me, just look out for him. Every time people saw me and they would ask, they spent the rest of the day looking for you. You didn’t tell me you were pulling their legs. It’s just a dumb question. I’m like, he’s not automatically here. I always just say, “I don’t know.” I don’t know, I don’t have… He’s coming up. You want me to bring up five of my friends? Coming round the mountain when he comes. All right, we’ll we coming around a mountain next week so Rhett can tell you about the worst vacation he’s ever had. Oh, maybe not that. Your crappy vacation. Hey, Rhett, Link, I am literally listening to you guys on what you could not live without during high school. Rhett just referred to the kefir, kimchi, and kombucha, I have a name for you. It is the fermented K’s, that’s it. They’re all fermented, fermented Ks, good to go. Can I mention that my name was Cam from Riverside? I’m sorry if I did that, have a good one. Hi, this is John from San Diego, and you mentioned your 3K diet. Might have better name for you since kefir is kind of a yogurt, you can just say, YKK and even better yet, you can call it the Y2K diet. Hope you have a good one, and I’ll keep listening, thanks. Hey, y’all, I’m just listening to an “Ear Biscuits” and you guys are talking about having kefir, loving kefir. My name is Kefir, and I’m very confused and thrown off, flattered, but confused and thrown off. Have a good one, y’all. To watch more “Ear Biscuits,” click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of “Ear Biscuits,” click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.