Vacation Recommendations

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd today we're gonna be

discussing vacations now just so we're

all clear

the wolf and i just got back from

vacation and you know we're trying to

catch up on

all the stuff that we're behind on

especially you know recording podcasts

all that good stuff

and we decided you know what there's

this you know kind of bizarre thing with

vacations and now that we just both got

off of vacations we said

this is a topic we kind of need to

broach we we need to talk a little bit

about vacations kind of

some good vacations we've been on and

honestly how ridiculous some vacations

kind of are yeah i was hoping we could

use this podcast as

click bait really so i think you have to

have the titlers

vacation recommendations oh so

click on it look for a recommendation

there aren't any

yes but we still get the hit well our

recommendation would be

just don't do it just go somewhere see

if you like it if you like it keep it to

yourself don't bother posting it on

facebook nobody cares

right because really nobody cares

to see your your pictures on your

vacations like

i don't really like you that much that's

why we're friends on facebook and we're

not real friends

in real life and that's why i'm not on

the vacation with you

and now you're taking these pictures on

your vacation that i didn't want to be

with you

anyway and i don't really care that

you're there and i'm happy

that you spent a lot of money that i

didn't have to spend

to be on that vacation with you yeah now

i did actually post on facebook about

40 photos of my vacation last week in

colorado with my girlfriend but that was

from the benefit of my english relatives

because they're just not used to seeing

the sun so every now and then i like to

post photos with the sun in the

background and they just kind of look at

the picture just imagine what it'd be

like to have the sun out in the sky

well not only that but there's no

mountains in england

there are oh up north yeah but there's

somewhere called the peak

district oh really yeah okay that's in

scotland it's quite maui

well yeah scotland scotland yeah i can

picture some mountains up there that

that's why they call it the highlands or

whatever up there right yeah i think

well

yeah maybe okay but i i didn't know

there were any mountains in

england oh yeah like so there's someone

called the peak district now

you have to remember this was relative

to

anything else which might be described

as a hill

or a mountain in england so the peak

district they might only be like about

150 feet high i don't know

oh i might need to load that one up well

i remember whenever

i was a you know young kid and

everything my dad would

you know take us on family vacations and

we would drive

from texas up through oklahoma and we'd

go through the

arbuckle mountains which are like 250

foot high yeah

and he would always joke about it he's

like yeah they call them mountains these

aren't mountains

so basically it's the same kind of

mountain over in england as the arbuckle

mountains are in oklahoma yeah i can't

remember the cut-off point for when it

stops becoming a hill

i don't know i know that's where my

family name is from

because the billington name

has to do with like these hills up in

lincolnshire

or whatever and it's like lincoln cheer

lincoln shire lincoln char

whatever whatever you want to call it

it's not the hobbit it doesn't come from

the shire

oh okay well yeah that's the american in

me

right but it has something to do with

hills up there or whatever and that's

kind of where my name comes from it's

the

land that my family owned you know five

six hundred years ago

over there and it was to do with hills

or something like that so they were

probably like

five foot tall and because my family's

so lazy we're like

yeah it's a hill we don't want to climb

yeah it's five foot tall

that's too much we let's just go to the

pub

sledging for infants exactly

so where was the first vacation you ever

had

the first vacation that i remember

was going up north you know out of texas

back to sea family in kansas and

missouri

all right you know it was just that

typical family vacation

you know we're talking about the mid 80s

right

so as a kid i'm in the back seat of the

car

not in a seat belt not in a car seat and

i was riding in the back seat of a 1982

cadillac eldorado

which in the back seat had that little

shelf

right above the back seat and so i would

just crawl up there

and lay down and take a nap for most of

the trip right

so when you know family vacation was to

actually

go see family it wasn't really about

going anywhere cool

it was like oh well let's go visit these

relatives

and i did the typical are we there yet

are we there yet you know my dad would

have the map

that like the old school paper map right

like laying in between him and my mom

you know

in the bent seat in that cadillac and he

would be

looking down even though he had driven

that so many times he still had to have

that map with him

right you know that was the old air

traffic controller part in him

he had to have that map right there so

he could put his finger on it and say

okay well i'm going through this town

i know you know my turn is up here in 60

miles but i'm just still going to look

at this on the map

i didn't actually go on a proper

vacation until i was 19.

now i'd visited countries you know

playing soccer

like growing up and stuff but really my

parents the only place they wanted to go

was a place called hunstanton

which is in east anglia which is on the

east coast of england

and it's a beach and um it's crab

one but it was probably about an hour

and a half's drive away

but my dad would only ever drive 35

miles per hour even on the highway

so it took like about four hours to get

there oh okay so about seven o'clock in

the morning

right so what you're saying is it's for

a

normal driver an hour and a half but

because he would only drive 35 it was a

four-hour trip

and he would i remember like driving

with him like every um

person who overtook him it'd be like

maniac

maniac effing maniac

that's all you'd hear right but back

then what was the speed limits on the

road

seventy seventy miles an hour yeah and

again

thirty five yeah you'd be like okay well

that's the speed

limit so i'm not going to get there i'm

going to drive below that i'm going to

drive safe

no he probably got good gas mileage even

though back then

nobody really cared about gas mileage

that much right

yeah now it was a day trip right so it

involved almost eight hours of driving

should have been three

total but right eight hours for us but

anyway when you got to hunt stanton

beach

the big thing about hunstanton beach is

it's more beach than actually sea

because like when the tide's out it's

like a mile and a half

walk to the water right you're standing

on the beach now the first part of the

beach at hunstanton

the sand is quite nice okay then you

have to go through

like all these pebbles and rocks for

about quarter of a mile

then there's more okayish beach then it

gets a little bit pebbly and

sharp rocky again then there's almost

like

no beach it's almost like dirt and then

sand and then you get to the water it's

honestly like walking to mordor

um that sounds like a terrible journey

just to get when you

get into the water you have to get about

half a mile out before it gets above

your knees

okay right so now so now you've walked

what almost two miles yeah i should have

added my apple watch back then because

i've got in a lot of steps

yeah um but yeah so you finally got to

the water

and it wasn't the cleanest water in the

world and it had a proliferation

of jellyfish well okay so back up so why

was the water

so dirty because it's on the coast of

england

yeah but i mean there's not this channel

mate well yeah but they're not drilling

for oil out there so why is it

why is the water so dirty just the ships

it's not driving around because it's not

too far away from france

oh i forgot about prince yeah and i

think the french

just like poop in the water and it just

used to drift across to us

yeah they're pouring all the wine out

there

and the dead cats out there yeah so

that's why it was dirty yeah so that's

the only that was the only beach i'd

been to

really now i did get to see other

beaches in europe for a few hours on

some of the

you know soccer trips and we had a

little bit of time off but we were

you know restricted in what we were

allowed to do right but that doesn't

count as a vacation no

you know traveling and vacation that's

two different things yeah

you had to travel for work you were

playing soccer for

work yeah so that's not a vacation we're

talking about

vacation you know we're talking about

just getting out of town

to relax quote unquote because

who relaxes on vacation now funnily

enough i did actually enjoy

my time when i was actually at home

stanton because you know it was the only

thing which

you know i'd ever really known as kind

of getting a way to go to the seaside as

we call it in england

right and um you know i have good

memories i've still got some photos now

and yeah i i enjoyed it overall i think

it was nice

yeah well it's kind of one of those

things where

you know my kids their first kind of

observation

of the ocean of the beach was galveston

right

and so a lot of people say oh

galveston's dirty

you know the sand's dirty the water is

dirty or whatever

but if that's all you know about the

beach and the ocean

then what difference does it make right

the problem is

then when you take them somewhere else

and they see

clearer water and cleaner beaches then

they don't want to go

to somewhere that's so much closer and

to me is much cooler because

you can hop in the car and unlike your

dad i'm not going to drive 35 miles an

hour from fort worth to galveston we're

gonna go like

85 and get there in five hours right i

mean i guess it's like the equivalent

of growing up in new york and seeing the

women

there and then moving to texas and

thinking what on earth have i been

looking at for right however many

years it's the same way with beaches you

know i mean i used to think

understanding was awesome but

you know galveston is a hundred times

better than understanding it really yeah

oh wow the water was so salty as well

well yeah but it's the ocean yeah

yeah but this was like dead sea type

salty oh

so you got out there in the water and

you couldn't go under the water you just

kind of float i blame the jellyfish

yeah yeah and they weren't the nice ones

either with those

ones who like swarm together and just

like sting the crap out of you for no

good reason

are there nice jellyfish i think so oh

well i've seen the octonauts and there's

been quite a few nice jellyfish on there

so

yeah but even spongebob didn't like

jellyfish did he not

no why no they all him and patrick

always went out there and tried to catch

him

you know they didn't like jellyfish so i

don't think there's such a thing as a

nice jellyfish

i've seen some on the octonauts so we'll

have to compare notes later on

yeah exactly yeah so the first proper

vacation i went to was with my first

girlfriend and i was 19

so i was a bit of a loser in that

respect because that was actually my

first girlfriend i didn't start dating

till i was 19.

yeah you kind of let that out and i i

could see your look like oh i maybe

shouldn't have said that yeah i was

gonna do the l over my head before i

started speaking the sentence but

yeah that was my first girlfriend we

went to tunisia which is kind of like a

cheaper version of turkey

uh what can i say about tunisia

food was horrible and there are a lot of

flies

beach was all right there were warnings

against swimming in the water because

for whatever reason the locals decided

that you know

what why use the toilet at home when we

can poop and pee in the water

and so you'd actually see poop floating

in the water well so they did

better than the people in san francisco

well yeah

yeah yeah because i mean the people in

san francisco just do it on the street

right yeah which is they save the water

for all the needles and stuff

no i think they leave the needles on the

street now oh yeah but

the thing is you only need so many poops

a day whereas the needles you know

i think they have to do that multiple

times so there's needles everywhere they

go

it's like a detective trail honestly i

think it has something to do with their

diet too yeah you know so maybe they're

multiple poops a day all right i do

remember kneeing

somebody in the face in tunisia actually

now where is tunisia

it's um i think it's close to turkey

it's some kind of north africa area

easter here more east than louisiana

a little bit further a little bit

further yeah about ten thousand miles or

so

okay so so closer to georgia yeah yeah

so me and my girlfriend we're in a part

of the beach which wasn't actually that

bad

and there were some quite big waves

coming in and my girlfriend was kind of

like wading in the water

and like some of the locals uh

were kind of swimming in the water and

they kept um

riding the waves in and trying to

accidentally

touch the white-skinned western

girls on the beach there and this one

guy kept riding the waves and get coming

in and trying to

accidentally touch my girlfriend so i

saw him go

for another try and i kind of moved her

out the way so he didn't see

he was heading right towards me and i

lifted my knee up and cracked him right

in the nose i heard the crack and there

was like automatically like i can't tell

you how much blood in the water yeah

kind of thing and it's actually not life

imprisonment or the death penalty but

pretty bad if you assault a tourist or

anything like that

in the country because that's where they

get a lot of their money from tourism

and so you know there weren't any

complaints or anything like that but i

didn't need him

like yeah but into next week but if it

was a tourist attacking another tourist

do the laws still apply

i don't know probably don't get involved

well yeah but you weren't a

member of that country you weren't a

citizen so

they couldn't prosecute you the same way

it wasn't a tourist it was coming in at

me it's tunisians local tunisians

that's what they did they used to like

to harass the western women

kind of like i've heard in jamaica you

know they

harass you a lot if you don't buy weed

from them right

yeah it's kind of the same thing yeah

same thing happens in new york

yeah that's true and i think san

francisco they try to sell you bags of

poop

yeah okay jenkins oh that's true

anybody listening look up jenkum and you

will regret doing so

yes please please do and please don't at

the same time

so once you know what we're talking

about you will say

i like you and i hate you but at the

same time that i know what this is

but don't get drunk and follow the

instructions on jenkins yes

yeah we do not recommend that and as

much as we like

you know to try to get sponsors we do

not want a

jenkins sponsor that is that is one

so no that's not true if they pay

somebody we'll promote them

yeah okay yeah

so we're just gonna stick with uh the

fact that uh dave matthews band

will not sponsor us and that's still the

only one

where we're going yeah we'll talk so

yeah dave matthews band you are still

on the list of people we don't want to

sponsors literally

if you're listening to this we will take

a jenkum sponsor

over you as a sponsor right so

where was the first vacation you went by

yourself without your parent well not by

yourself but without your parents

it wasn't like a family vacation ah

without my parents

have you ever been on a holiday without

your parents yeah no i have

i honestly i'm i'm trying to think

i guess my eighth grade field trip to

washington dc

that was the first time i mean i had

after not a vacation going to washington

dc

well yeah i i guess i agree with you

there

i'm just traveling to washington dc you

have to spend some time there and

i mean so by that definition i guess i'm

going to have to go with my honeymoon

yeah i mean that's my

probably first honest vacation

that you know it wasn't a family related

thing it wasn't just a

a quick you know hey couple hour drive

something like that

i guess it'd have to be my honeymoon

well you got married in like middle

school so what were you like

yeah i i was thirty almost fourteen yeah

almost fourteen yeah

now we went to uh pennsylvania we went

to the poconos

and then we spent a few days in new york

city

and uh no it was a good vacation and the

the sad thing it was

just after 9 11 so you know you you have

the new

you know travel requirements in place

and all that

and then when we were in new york you

know we went to

the world trade center site when

everything was still a wreck

so it kind of got to see that firsthand

but

it was kind of like the pictures i mean

that

that's the one frustrating thing about

vacations you know you

you see pictures of things like you see

pictures of the green canyon you see

pictures of the pyramids you see

pictures of the statue of liberty all

these landmarks right

and then you go and you see them in

person and you realize

i think the pictures were better than

seeing it in person oh yeah

definitely with the world trade center

because um my girlfriend at the time

used to run

uh tours for international students and

au pairs and stuff who came over to the

states

and you know she would take them around

visits around world trade center

and all this stuff and so i i went with

her a few times and you know i went in

the world trade center in that but yeah

to me it just looks like a couple of

skyscrapers at the time

right it wasn't impressive i mean i know

it was iconic and legendary

well they were tall it wasn't impressive

you know that they were tall buildings

and you know was

the twin towers so you had two buildings

right next to each other that were

identical looking basically one had an

antenna the other one didn't and

other than that they looked the same now

the empire state building and the

chrysler building and stuff they were

more impressive and they were nicer

inside but

well it was just literally like going up

in some office blocks

yeah the world trade center in dallas is

more impressive than that

yeah no that's true i mean i i had some

people come over

from papua new guinea and i took him up

in the reunion tower

you know in papua new guinea oh i know

quite a few people are you ready

yeah uh jab mesa i'm sure he's

maybe smells like character from star

wars no i

i know a handful of people still in

papua new guinea

when i went over there but we had some

people come over from papua new guinea

and i

took them up in the reunion tower here

in dallas

and they thought it was fantastic to go

up that high and

even you know the reunion tower really

isn't that tall

but it's the tallest thing they had ever

been you know

to to look over all the skyscrapers and

you know ride in an elevator to go up

that high

i mean that that was impressive to them

something you and i would just

kind of take advantage of and say uh not

that big of a deal but

there are a lot of people that would say

oh yeah that's the only time i've done

that and that's probably a huge

memory for them now is new guinea a bit

like tatooine

uh no it's more like indoor okay

yeah so it's very jungly oh over there

oh wow

and they still practice cannibalism

right in fact yeah so

uh you figured they're perfected

eventually yeah they're

almost there so uh apparently they like

dark meat more than white meat over

there

so uh my dad and i were safe when we

were over there right

so i think the first holiday i actually

enjoyed

i went to spain a place called colella

which was a bit of a tourist trap and it

was super cheap

well now how it how is a tourist trap

cheat

because usually the definition of a

tourist trap is

everything's expensive yeah but you've

got to have these touristy places where

people with not much money can go oh

yeah and at that time because all the

poor europeans

yeah i hadn't signed um yeah because

professional contract

right everybody in europe yeah everybody

in europe sport except like the queen

and in the beckhams that's pretty much

it yeah yeah nelton john

oh he's european he's pressure

oh yeah oh that's right he's he's a

knight too he's sir elton john yeah is

he dead because i did we have this

discussion a few podcasts ago

now whether he's dead or not no he's

still lying i think so

i don't know i'm pretty sure i know

freddie mercury's dad

yes he is dead yes and ironically i

think freddie mercury

and elton john suffer from the same

thing but elton john's still alive ellen

john didn't guides

oh that's not what i was talking about

orgaism

oh right yeah yeah both very good

musical artists though yes excellent

true

yeah so yeah spain colella me

and two of my friends from high school

went and actually one of the guy's

name his last name was shepard craig

shepard and

the other guy his name was greg

and we didn't have much money when we

went there but you know when you go to

those touristy traps

you know in europe especially like spain

southern spain you know the beer is kind

of watered down

and super cheap really they water down

the beer

yeah i know i've heard of watering down

like

cocktails but how do you water down beer

i mean it

you've got to be able to realize the

beer is watered down well yeah you do

i mean it tastes like 50 water and 50

beer so i mean it's not quite as weak as

bud light but it's getting there

well i thought that's what bud light was

no it's not like

80 percent water in 20 percent like you

take alien ale yeah you know our beer

sponsor right

and then you pour like 25 of that

into a glass yeah then you fill 75

percent

water you shake it around then you pour

it into another glass pour like half of

that out

fill 50 percent more water and then

maybe you get bud light

no alien ale even if you dilute it a

ratio of 1 to 10 is still stronger than

bad light

that's probably true yeah because alien

ale lies on its

uh percentage alcohol content we're

pretty sure

i'm pretty sure i mean they are our

sponsor but we think it's a little bit

stronger than they advertise it's like

beer tasting vodka

yeah yeah yeah it is some fantastic

stuff that's why we love it

god sound beer i do remember in calela

actually my friend greg he

sun burnt his ankle so he had never been

to a beach before

and so he had absolutely no idea how

long to

lay out in the sun and so and he did the

typical british thing of not putting on

any sunscreen

and he managed to burn his ankles

because he laid out in the sun no joke

for like 10 hours that first day and the

weather

i think it was like about 88 and in

england it reaches 88

about every time they replaced the pope

or something and yeah he burnt his

ankles and he had to lay

i remember in bed for almost like the

first two days after that

so like three days in was the first time

he could actually get out and enjoy

anything because he couldn't walk

literally i mean it it

hurt him so much his ankles were like

blistering bubble blisters

but but he just burnt his ankles his

ankles and his feet yeah

i don't know what i don't know why the

rest of him didn't burn no i think he's

a little bit hairy on his legs that's

why

well yeah but that's typical british

people yeah i mean that's where i come

from i mean i'm not

from britain my family's been here for

years but i'm hairy like a monkey

right and so are you that's all part of

being from

you know the british islands so to speak

because evolution did us a favor because

it's so bloody cold you needed some hair

to keep you warm yeah

yeah you got to have some insulation

right so but

just like you just like me we don't have

any hair on our ankles or our feet

so i can kind of see where that i don't

know i've got a couple of hairy toes

it's only on one foot though i don't

have any hair actually i've got

i've got two toes on my left foot which

are whipped

that's like it's like it tried to grow

into another big toe but then kind of

quit halfway through

was it trying to tell you that you

should try to swim across the ocean and

get away from england well that's why

when i swim i go around in circles a lot

because

i go faster on one side than the other

and i just can't remember to kind of

stroke less well that's probably why you

had to play soccer and weren't on the

swim team

well it's just like playing with one big

foot yeah yeah there you go

so i think i was drunk like 99

the time i was there so i can't really

tell you anything about colella rather

than

it had nice beach the water was all

right but it was pretty

it was pretty ish i mean yeah pre-ish

and that was a stage in my life where i

wasn't really having any success with

girls so there was no holiday romances

as such

you know you always hear about those

holiday romances where

you know you maybe you're a single guy

or whatever and then you meet this woman

and

you know they're on vacation too and

it's that one that got away

yeah you know well greg greg and craig

they're a pair of losers as well so

nobody got any action

so it's you know well and i never met

one on vacation either

because i was always dragging the wife

along oh yeah yeah that kind of hurts so

yeah that would have been bad if i would

have done that i would have felt

kind of horrible unless you were looking

for a sister wife yeah

third yeah well yeah we we haven't

vacationed in

utah yet right so maybe if we vacation

in utah

maybe i can kind of set that up if we

convert to

mormonism or something like that now

what's the worst holiday you can

remember

before you had kids because obviously

when you have kids

that can turn even a nice vacation into

a nightmare if they kind of

a little bit unruly the crazy thing

is i don't remember any bad

vacations before kids everything was

kind of good i mean

even when we went to places that we

didn't necessarily like

it was still good and we made the best

of it

it wasn't the complaining are we there

yet and

you know all of that stuff so i have i

have no complaints

about pre-kid vacations right it's

post kid vacations that really suck

daddy why are you trying to

flatten mommy yeah yeah yeah

are we there yet yeah you know what are

we gonna do here we

blah blah blah blah you know it's just a

giant

pain right and you know kids look back

on

it at least and realize hey those were

great vacations but they don't realize

when they went to bed

and dad mom you know shut the door

and dad's like 13 beers in and

is saying i just i don't want to do this

again i don't want to do this again

just please get me home that's why we're

going to drive 13 hours straight to get

back home

tomorrow when we're not stopping and

we're going to do

like f1 pit stops when we get to the gas

station because i've got to get home

that's what happens yeah now i did

actually enjoy the

vacations i've been on with my son but

the sun shines out of his backside so

that's a little bit different

but you know i have been on vacations

with

friends before who have brought their

kids along

and even other people's kids annoy me on

vacation

so is it they brought their kids and you

didn't have your kids i didn't have my

kid at that time yeah so it's like

well wait a second i thought this was a

vacation

kind of for adults but you decided to

bring your kids along

well they kind of paid for it so yeah

complain about it yeah but

they still kind of ruin it yeah so okay

in your example

right you're coming along for the trip

they paid for it but they brought their

kids

doesn't it almost ruin it yep yeah did

ruin it yeah

because everything had to be centered

around their kids the entire time and

they were

those type of parents who wouldn't drink

around their kids

right and they didn't want you drinking

around their kids either

yeah so they're they're ruining it for

you

and they're actually ruining it for

themselves and these

and this was in the days before delta a

existed so you couldn't even kind of

like

secretly be happy it's like oh hang on

let me go take a vitamin yeah let me go

take a

gummy vitamin and i'll just super happy

in about 45 minutes

and and then you could say hey timmy

here take a vitamin two

so maybe you'll calm down yeah it might

calm your ass down

exactly yeah one of the best holidays

but also one of the worst holidays i had

was in a place called blackpool

it's in the northwest of england not far

away from manchester

okay um it's a big tourist hotspot

for people who live in the uk and for

some reason people who visit from europe

like to go and see blackpool as well

there's a tower in blackpool which has

the really original name

called blackpool tower and it's called a

tower

but i literally have seen higher trees

than

the tower oh yeah and i'm still talking

about the redwood forest in california

i'm talking about

you know like 30 foot 40 foot trees and

it's like this is a tower i mean now

it's it it's probably been turned into

like a cell phone tower or something

yeah but that literally sounds like a

tourist trap

well it's it was supposed to be i think

a replica of the eiffel tower

in france right now if you've seen the

eiffel tower it just looks like an

electricity pile on

in real life it's crap but this was a

kind of

one-third to scale crap i got you have

you heard about the

skyscraper in wichita falls no

okay so this is a fantastic story so

just a little bit up north of where we

record

there's a town called wichita falls

texas

and you think about okay wichita falls

yes there's a waterfall there and it's

terrible to see

it's literally maybe 30 foot tall

it's horrible when you see the wichita

falls you're like

oh wow i came here to see that but

what will disappoint you even more is

the skyscraper

that they have in wichita falls so some

dude i can't remember his name

and whoever's listening to this

seriously just

look this up this guy passed this deal

through the wichita falls government to

build a skyscraper

in wichita falls at this ridiculously

cheap price but they didn't pay

attention

to the scale on the skyscraper

so it's only 40 foot tall and they

thought it was going to be like 400 foot

tall

so he got all this money and built this

real

short building that has four stories but

the stories are like

you know super short in this and the

building still

stands today and it's basically a huge

joke

to wichita falls texas that they let

this slip through

now i didn't know there was actually a

waterfall in wichita falls there he is

because i've been there i've been there

a few times i went there when i was

coaching a few soccer teams

and a couple of my parents were from

wichita falls so we ended up going up

there doing

a couple of tournaments now i'll tell

you who would be impressed by the

waterfall in wichita falls

eric no my girlfriend because when we're

in colorado last week

she uh pointed and went look a waterfall

and i turned round and no joke it looked

like somebody's sink was overflowing

it was like maybe about five foot off

the ground

it wasn't exactly a deluge of uh

water coming off it and i said i don't

know technically that counts as a

waterfall

yeah so she'd probably be impressed with

that yeah

if she was impressed with that one she

would really be impressed with

wichita falls because i've got a picture

somewhere and maybe we'll throw it on

the instagram

with a couple of buddies of mine from my

old

motorcycle riding club that i saw

the wichita falls i'm like really that's

what this is i mean it's it's literally

like maybe

30 40 foot tall it is

nothing to drive whatever it is about

two hours from here to see

but yeah wichita falls is

such a disappointment in a city and and

i hate to say that about a texas city

especially as close to wichita falls as

we are

right you know what wichita falls your

disappointment

well my girlfriend still points at

horses and cows when we drive past them

so she'll probably be quite enamored by

it

oh well yeah but she is from ohio well

actually she was born in the same place

you were

chicago yeah i didn't know that ah

south chicago ah okay she made it

through the birth without getting shot

yeah you know good for her yeah me too

yeah then

and i was born in the county hospital

too i was born in cook county hospital

in chicago

i mean that's a dangerous hospital yeah

then she moved

to cincinnati

yeah and then somewhere else and then

texas

well i see one of the reasons why i like

watching

er all the time is i keep telling the

wife hey that's cook county hospital

that's where i was born that's why it's

one of my favorite shows

and that never gets old i'm sure no it

never gets old

even though i moved to texas when i was

two months old and i

don't know anything about chicago but i

know hey

that's the hospital i was born in never

been back

but there you go well one great thing

about

blackpool for tourists from

like france is i think after paris

it has the highest proportion

of prostitutes per square mile than

anywhere in europe

even more than amsterdam i thought

amsterdam had a lot of prostitutes well

i think that's legalized there so

technically they're kind of sex workers

and professionals so they're not really

called prostitutes

i got you okay so they're they're

figuring out a way to adjust those

metrics oh i guess i i guess i did go on

an early

vacation as such then to france because

i actually went there for about

four or five days on a school trip so i

guess it was kind of like a holiday

and paris was the most disappointing

place i've been to in my life

yeah i've never been to paris of course

i've i've never been to europe

but but tell me about paris because i i

think

paris is the ultimate tourist trap

i always thought well the eiffel tower

like i said it just looks like in a

electricity pile right i drive past

sometimes

bigger electricity pylons than the

eiffel tower is

outside of about maybe 12 blocks

paris is like dirty as all get out it's

like

again in san francisco but it's just oh

my goodness

is homeless poop drugs

prostitutes you get mugged if you go

certain places everything is cost like

about

you know 20 for a bagel and everybody

smokes everywhere

yeah french people are very very rude as

well yeah but smoking is still a big

thing in europe well yeah france in

italy especially

right yeah yeah i mean we we basically

got it

in america now to where you can't smoke

anywhere

but over in europe you can still smoke

everywhere

now in england they have stopped smoking

in i think most bars

and stuff now obviously small town

village you know pubs

you've probably still got smoking in and

stuff but yeah france i remember just

like going into a restaurant

like obviously it was a group of us

because it's a school trip but

you know they kind of divided us up and

sent us to different places to go eat

with a teacher

and i remember we were sitting next to a

table and there must have been about six

guys i guess businessmen whatever and

they were all smoking constantly

throughout the meal

and i mean like the entire place was

just like cloud of smoke it's just

and the food was i don't know french

food is not anything to write home about

unless you're writing home saying the

food's crap right and

here's the weird thing you know i spent

a lot of years of my life

smoking cigarettes and i kind of regret

it now but

you know it is what it is it's all done

and

i'm glad i don't smoke anymore but the

one thing i could never do

is smoke a cigarette while i had food in

front where i

they say it brings out the flavor in the

food i don't believe that

now i don't i don't believe that i just

i don't want cigarette smoke around me

when i was eating even when i was

smoking

and one of the things that finally got

me

kind of away from smoking was you know

and you were one of them

was that you know i'd drag people to a

bar and say hey we're going to go to

this bar because i can smoke

and then you'd be like i don't want to

be around all the cigarettes i'm like

well you're not smoking but then you

realize

even if you're not smoking you walk out

smelling like a cigarette

yeah which is tough so if i go in

somewhere where there's a bunch of

cigarette smoke around

i think to myself well this sucks

i either need to light up a cigarette or

i need to get out of here

and i'd rather get out of there than be

around all the cigarette smoke yeah

another thing i found in france is that

people

love to clear their throat and their

nose during meals

you're sitting next to this i guess it's

a couple in there

i don't know 60s maybe and the woman i

don't know if she had a cold or

something but all you heard like

throughout the meal and the table she

was probably sat

maybe about as close as you are now so

maybe about two three feet

all you heard was

throughout the meal while she's eating

while she's eating and then she was

coughing having a coughing fit and then

at the end of the calf obviously she's

just coughing up the flame

and then spitting into a handkerchief

the whole time she's spinning into the

handkerchief

yeah like all the phlegm and everything

else that she's hacking up

yeah and then i'm guessing once she's

done with that just

taking another bite of food yeah she's

still smoking then

so yeah that was that was kind of crap

so now i would not recommend anybody to

go to paris you can cross that off your

bucket list unless you're going to go

watch

i don't know like a soccer game go watch

paris saint-germain yeah but play but

other than that

okay so what so what is the name of that

bridge

you know that lovers bridge or whatever

that they had in paris

where you take the lock you know you buy

a lock

and and you write your name on it and

it's like oh

you know the wolf loves the shepherd and

then you

put the lock on the bridge and you throw

the key in the

river or whatever i can't remember i

haven't heard about it though yeah

but they got rid of that deal yeah you

can't

do that anymore they cut all the locks

off of there

and they won't let anybody do that

anymore so

to me it's like okay the eiffel tower

seen enough pictures don't really need

to see a tower

right maybe i want to take my wife over

there do the lock thing oh we got rid of

that okay so

now i'm not going to do that french

people are rude french people are

going to remember yeah run away

i don't really want to eat a baguette so

why do i want to go to france

no honestly the dogs bark funny they

bark in a french accent it's like

back back yeah so

france's crap tourism

business has got to suck i will say like

leon

and marseille in france really nice

and if you go southern france it's super

super nice

middle of france is completely peasants

well now where's paris at

in france northern northern okay

so kind of like you go through the

channel

thing and you pop out the other side and

yeah across the ferry

and land in calais in france and then

like catch a train or some crap

yeah bus gotcha got a bus getting a

smoking bus

yeah don't have cancer before you get to

paris yeah because everybody's smoking

over there

right yeah where's the trashiest place

you've been on location

that is super easy new orleans

really yes yeah new orleans even though

it's

kind of an interesting town i've been

there

uh i think three times it just

it stinks you know when you cross the

border

the eastern border of texas into

louisiana

i i encourage anybody that lives in

texas

if you drive to louisiana when you cross

over

the river just roll the windows down

because louisiana has a smell

louisiana stinks and new orleans

is the armpit of that stink when you

get into there and even though there's

a lot of culture and a lot that you can

see in new orleans that

town is filthy it is filthy it stinks

it's dirty and you really only need to

go

and see it one time and by the way you

don't need to go

during mardi gras and go with all that

mass because it's

really not worth it it's once again a

tourist trap

because all the debauchery and

everything goes on constantly in bourbon

street

but it's not worth it you just saw

because you didn't get many beads for

showing your tits

well i got a lot of beads yeah two of

the three times right i went

yeah well you know that time well the

the third time i was with my wife

and there were people constantly going

up to her trying to offer her beads

saying hey would you like a set of beads

and i'm like

dude i'm standing right here next to my

wife

are you seriously asking her to show

you her boobs and not you yeah

because yeah i i never get to see them

right you know beads or no beads or or

whatever

i can offer i never get to see them

right and and this random dude just

comes up and says hey

you know here's a two dollar

you know plastic beads and show me your

boobs

yeah it's terrible do you want my

username and password to our only fan

site so you can catch glimpse of them

more

oh that would be nice yeah it would be

nice on it no i

i do have your username and password for

your girlfriend's

only fan site so i'll share that with

you if you if you'll give me

your prices per month are pretty similar

so

yeah yeah i mean i i i paid like a

hundred dollars a month for your

oh wow yeah it's not that much

i knew i was getting ripped off i just

remembered a nice place in france

montpellier it's on the south coast of

france that was a

really nice vacation i had there because

i actually stayed there after playing

um a soccer tournament there i stayed

there for about six days after was

really really nice expensive

but really really nice well not many

french people there amazingly

okay but when you say expensive no

expensive

comparatively to what well i think when

i went

it was 19 1990

and i think the hotel cost

was about i want to say 350 pounds a

night so about seven hundred dollars a

night okay 30 years ago

yeah that's expensive yeah but i wasn't

paying for it so i didn't really care

about it well

you know you know yeah you weren't

paying for it but

you know what's expensive to one is it

maybe

different to another i mean i i told you

before we hit record on the podcast

my daughter is turning 18 tomorrow

and decided that she's gonna go up to

wisconsin

from dfw on saturday and

bought a round trip plane ticket for

250 bucks that's pretty cheap

now no one wants to go to wisconsin so

if she didn't have a friend up there she

wasn't gonna

run up to wisconsin no offense to our

wisconsin

listeners but who the hell

wants to go to wisconsin well i would to

go and get another bishop to replace mia

because that's where they're from

wisconsin

really yeah so she wants to bring me

back another vicious or two

oh well hopefully she'll get back before

my girlfriend listens to this podcast

because she's okay we can't have any

more dogs but okay well maybe we need to

make a deal after we

hit stop on this recording and then

maybe i can pay for the trip of getting

you a dog

so we're what you do realize that dog's

going to cost you at least 250 bucks

so i can cover the ticket the um

thoroughbred ones are about two grand i

think

okay so i'm gonna tell her to

get one of the gimpy ones that we can

get for like a couple hundred bucks then

i'll charge again

because very carefully brett yeah but i

can guarantee you

i'll find the gimpy one and then you

know

we're talking about like 500 bucks you

get a good deal

i get the trip paid for and then you get

a new dog

you do understand i'm gonna be able to

tell if it's a greyhound right

no i'll just dye the hair ginger yeah

because visceral is a ginger exactly

yeah now i'll fool you

one of my one of my friend's doors

turned 18 about two weeks ago

and i was i think where were we

i think we were watching a soccer game

one of the first opening um

euro 2020 games which is being played in

2021

and he said yeah my daughter tunes 18

on saturday and you know i've been

struggling with it it's one of those

things you know when a father's got a

daughter she's 18.

so now she's legal and i said well does

she have a boyfriend he goes

well i'm not talking about sex i'm

worried now that she's allowed to vote

and she's as dumb as a box of socks

yes yeah yeah i mean that's my daughter

too i mean she's intelligent but she's

not intelligent right and so yeah i mean

we're

introducing another voter into this

world that doesn't know what the hell

she's talking about yeah it's all

information from tick tock

yes yeah well tick tock and snapchat

and instagram right that's basically

all the information she needs to decide

what she believes now what's the best

vacation you've been on

i know you said since you've had kids

they've all been a bit of a struggle but

i'm gonna have to go back even though

when i was in papua new guinea it kind

of sucked

but i did spend a few days in australia

and those few days i spent in australia

were really cool and i know we have some

you know a handful of listeners in

australia well my oldest brother lives

in australia yeah

i i love australia yeah i

the craziest thing that happened to me

in australia to be honest with you

was when i went into a pub

in australia i was 18 when i was there

so that was legal drinking age in

australia so i went into a pub

i didn't say a word that literally

i did not open my mouth i walked in

and everybody turned around and like oh

look at the yank

that's here without speaking without

anything they

knew i was an american oh yeah we could

spot american tourists

off in england yeah i was shocked

bought the spanish and you could spot

the germans and the americans

you know it's always the easiest one but

it was shocking as an american

that i'm looking around at these people

and they look a lot like me

but they knew i was an american when i

walked in

it and it's still to this day kind of

shocking to me

that they just could look at me and know

i wasn't

australian i was an american and

honestly i mean i didn't have like a

shirt on that said

australia you know like a tourist i was

just

dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and

flip-flops and

everything when i walked in but they

knew immediately

immediately that i was an american

was it because your clothes cost more

than 30 dollars

possibly yeah possibly the australians

aren't the most stylish people

yeah outside of kylie minogue i don't

know they've ever given us anybody with

any kind of style

i i will tell you this though after i

got over the fact that

they said you know that i was a yank

they treated me

really good yeah i mean they i i didn't

spend a dime

in that place they bought everything for

me it

and it's kind of like a lot of people do

to you they just wanted to hear me talk

like you would do an australian here in

america it's like oh i just want to hear

you talk or

whatever they wanted to hear me talk

they knew i was from texas based off my

voice and like oh yeah you're from texas

and you know and they do that oh you got

guns and you ride horses

i'm like yes i have like 900 horses and

500 pistols and that's all i do all day

long is

just ride around on my horse and shoot

my guns in the air because that's what

we do in of well that's what

most of my english friends thought and

and actually relatives

before i moved over to texas they were

like so you're gonna get a horse

i said i don't know maybe i mean already

had guns i was one of the few people

well i say a few there's actually over a

million people in england who have

registered guns but

yeah but you should have also told them

well i'm pretty sure when i moved to

texas they just

issued me a horse yeah and a gun yeah at

the same time

at the airport yes yeah even before you

get through

tsa clearance well the tsa just

says hey we confiscated these guns so

now that you're here

yeah you can have this one yeah yeah

this came from a gang banger i think

yeah use it more than twice or else yeah

exactly it's a barter system

right i think the best vacation i've

ever been on was hawaii now technically

that was

the honeymoon with my son's mum

and xander was actually in the womb at

that time so technically my son has been

to hawaii

right yeah and no that was good we went

all-inclusive

holiday there well honeymoon there flew

first class and yeah that was that's

really great enjoyed every day at that

location really nice can't be bad i

don't think if i could go back anywhere

actually

or go anywhere that would actually be my

first choice because that was pretty

much perfect

now we're in hawaii it was the main

island

and i'm just trying to remember the name

of the big island yeah

well that's called hawaii yeah but

there's i know but there's dif

it's called different names in different

parts of it it's not just the whole

thing's not just called hawaii

but i thought the big island was called

hawaii well it is but there's

different parts of the island are called

different names like counties

oh okay that's what i mean well because

you have like

maui and oahu and all that that's in

yeah

hawaii but i thought the big island was

called hawaii it might be

yeah but yeah i was trying to remember

the name of the resort

oh but yeah i wasn't 100

sober a lot of the time especially

arriving there and leaving which

probably

affected my ability to be able to

remember what the name of the place was

first class yeah it was like free drinks

all the way exactly and not only

because the the wife at the time

couldn't drink so you were drinking for

two

i was drinking well i was drinking for

three actually three yeah i was drinking

the panda as well

yeah exactly i remember when i took my

wife up to boston

i asked for a little bit of bourbon

and it's some ginger ale and i said i

just want to mix this up

and i was flying first class with the

wife and no kidding they brought me

a glass full of bourbon oh yeah that

happened in hawaii um

i asked for a i think this was like jack

and coke

and they gave me a glass and i took a

sip of it i was like wow is there any

coke in this and then he bought over a

literal can of coke and said here's the

coke

yeah yeah i i mean it you know god love

american airlines when i've

flown first class i mean when when

you're in first class in american

airlines they treat you right

yeah they still do even post covid

that's still the only way to fly and

i i had to fly before in

coach and then i flew back first class

because i got a

upgrade and i mean flying coach

really sucks i mean it sucked before but

now it sucks even worse

but first class still sucks

compared to what first class used to be

right but that's basically the only way

to fly

so you know what if if you're gonna take

a vacation

seriously spring the money and just

go ahead and fly first class to really

enjoy yourself i haven't

flown coach i don't think in like maybe

about nine or ten years

i've only flown first class since so

since why i just can't go and coach yeah

it just sucks i don't want my knees up

my nose i don't want to sit next to

somebody's stink so i don't want to sit

next to somebody who's

half of their ass is in my seat right

you know

yeah it it just absolutely sucks and

it's not worth it because you're

supposed to be on vacation you're

supposed to be enjoying yourself

spend the money just spend the money and

and do it right

yeah now what's on your bucket list in

terms of vacations places you haven't

been

you know you bring up hawaii yeah i'd

kind of like to see hawaii

i haven't been to hawaii i haven't been

to alaska i'd kind of like to see hawaii

i think i'd be okay if i miss alaska you

know

i think i would i think i always wanted

to go to alaska you know see polar bears

see some wild

right but i think i'd grow tired of it

after two days yeah if if i miss it i

miss it

i'm not gonna be bothered by it you know

i'd like to go to england

you know and i know saying that to you

you're like ah

no you don't really want to go but you

know what i i'd like to

gain for historical reasons you'd like

to get yeah

exactly you know that's why i want to go

to england and i'd kind of like to see

that

i'd like to go to the holy land to be

honest with you i'd like to see

jerusalem yeah i'd like to kind of do

the

to the walk around there and see if we

get the jerusalem syndrome yes

you know because i i think i've got like

fifty percent chance i might get the

drug

it's gonna be psychosomatic now because

we know so much about the jerusalem

syndrome i'm getting halfway across the

yeah

i mean i'm gonna be putting on the toga

on the airplane on the way there

actually when you fly to israel from

here do you go across the pacific or at

the atlantic i can't remember which way

is faster just to get there

i'm pretty sure it's atlantic is that

yeah i think so

but i i'd kind of like to see the holy

land yeah

you know it that that's one that i think

would be

really cool to see that honestly i don't

think the pictures

do justice i've seen the pictures of

like the pyramids

in you know cairo and you see the great

pyramid and all that and then you see

the

other pictures on the internet where

it's like oh and then if you flip around

this way you realize you know the city's

right behind here and it's

not really that cool looking not

exciting at all not once in egypt anyway

right and so i i constantly look at

those things and i say

you know i'm good with never seen that

but yeah to me the holy land

would be really cool to just actually

be there and you see so many pictures

with

whether it's you know the normal media

whether it's just

researching it on the internet it's all

kind of the same pictures you know what

you're gonna see

but to me that would be kind of cool to

just actually

really be there and you know put your

hand on the wailing wall and

and see some of the things with you know

the temple mount

and what is it the church of the holy

sepulcher

and all that stuff i would love to

actually

walk around jerusalem for like a week

yeah

and yes get the jerusalem syndrome

nothing

and then i'd have to call you and you

would have to take me out of the mental

institution

because i'd probably get the jerusalem i

think i'd like to see india

but only as part of a guided tour i

don't think i'd want to be let loose

myself now obviously not at the moment

because they're drinking cow urine and

covering themselves in cow dung to get

rid of kovid but

once that sells down i think i'd like to

go on a guided tour visit some of our

fans in india

of which we have a lot so yeah no i

could see

that i mean there there's there's a

couple other things like uh

petra jordan would be kind of cool to

see

if you go to petra with that uh little

temple that's carved in the side of the

mountain that was from

indiana jones but once again it's like

okay

well i've seen the movie i've seen the

pictures

i know i'm going to be disappointed you

know it that's where

i i hesitate with a lot of things it's

like we talked about

just earlier in this podcast about

washington dc

it's kind of cool to see that stuff up

front

but then when you get there you realize

a lot of this is

very disappointing yeah when you see it

because

we live in this information society now

with

all of the internet and the google map

tours of everything you don't really

have to be there

to see what all this stuff has to offer

but i think jerusalem is that one that

the pictures will not do it just right

yeah

well i mean the atmosphere obviously is

a big thing there whereas like

you know a lot of countries you go

somewhere it's more as an

aesthetic as opposed to you know a

more sensory experience right you know

but yeah no i definitely like to go

there i think i would like to go

on a safe tour of south america see

brazil

argentina colombia but you know not get

kidnapped raped and shot and that kind

of stuff

true yeah i mean if i was going to go

there i wouldn't

want to have any of that done to me now

i've never been to mexico you've been to

mexico right

i have been to mexico now your wife's

been to mexico even though she's

well it my wife went to mexico with me

yeah for the second time

right she went with her father one time

also but just to resorts

yeah she went to cancun with my

father-in-law

and then went to puerto vallarta now the

only reason i say that is obviously as

most of our listeners know that

shepard's wife is actually

mexican or mexican heritage as such a

mexican descent born in texas yeah yes

uh of mexican descent can say hola and

gracias and that's it yes

yeah and when we go into a mexican

restaurant

in texas i speak more mexican than she

does

right okay well let's finish off and

tell people about our most recent

vacations

yes of last week and you can explain to

people how you broke your toe

before oh we're gonna bring that up

so i went on vacation uh this past

week in destin florida so we actually

left fort worth texas and drove to

biloxi mississippi

stayed the night at the palace casino

resort there

uh nice place a little overpriced but

yeah it was okay uh don't eat food there

the food

sucks sorry palace casino you need to

step up your game

i mean the food sucked so we left there

and then we went to dustin

and we spent a few days in dustin and

it was nice i wish i wouldn't went

but it was still nice and so

we were walking up the steps

and i had a crate full of all the beach

toys that my kids were playing with

and i'm wearing flip-flops my flip-flops

are wet

of course the steps were made of wood

and everybody's walking up the steps

they're wet and

yep boom sure enough broke my toe

and that really sucked so it uh

it made that you know last piece of the

vacation

you know really kind of sucks so so yeah

i

i broke my toe on the steps and

uh you know drove myself home and

i drove straight through from destin all

the way back home

and it was about 13 hours

but it was worth it when i got back to

the great state of texas now if you

weren't so lazy breaking a big toe could

be quite inconvenient

true yeah because people use them to

walk around on and stuff

yeah yeah thankfully i don't walk that

much no

exactly just the car and the house and

stuff

now now you went to

where colorado the rocky mountain bit

first as i mentioned my girlfriend did

ca waterfall in

parenthesis we went to see her brother

and her

cousins who we've actually had on the

show the two shaman victories

love you guys well that's cool that you

went

actually out there and went to see that

yeah they're super super cool

and met another one of her relatives uh

named aunt

kathy who is one of the most awesome

individuals on the planet i'll tell you

if she was

much much younger i'd actually marry her

because she was such

a funny person and a buzz to be around

absolutely no filter

whatsoever on her like on july 4th

and i think she's like crap she must be

in her 70s but on july 4th she was still

up at like two o'clock in the morning

like drinking and singing and dancing so

wow

she's yeah she's now is she a shaman

also no

oh okay but she's hilariously funny

so yeah that was it but now i enjoyed it

went for eight days had a lot of nice

walks around some mountains got out of

breath

i ate a lovely curry in colorado oh no

you didn't yeah because there's no such

thing as lovely

oh what was it it was a himalayan

himalayan curry wow still not lovely

that was no no there's no such thing

well i know we have a picture of you you

know

standing up there on the mountaintop

yeah

with the wolf and the shepherd t-shirt

on which was cool

and i know we talked about this before

we started this recording but

i don't think we can do a podcast about

big rocks

we can are we going to

no why actually we might because i

actually did look up

there's lots of stories about big rocks

which were actually pretty good

like um there's these ones which kind of

keep moving in the desert and nobody

knows

how and why they move yeah there's ones

where

i mean if you take like i don't know

even those like heads on easter island

wherever it is and then they did sonic

stuff and like there's a whole body

underneath the

ground as well as their heads and

they're not sure how they did that son

no i think there's actually quite a few

stories we could do on big rocks

actually yeah should be interesting yeah

probably more interesting than this one

yeah you know and with all that said

thanks for tuning in to this episode of

the wolf and the shepherd and we will

catch you on the next one

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