MGU 122 | Camping Trip

 

Just because flying is out of the question at this time doesn’t mean that you can’t still experience the outside world—particularly for this episode, the outdoors. And what else can you do where you remain safe from social contact than camping? In this conversation, Jason Wrobel and Whitney Lauritsen talk about their upcoming camping trip, sharing their preparations in terms of tent camping and the Tesla camp model as well as their expectations for the activity. They then reflect on road-tripping and camping, their pros and cons, how they fare to flying, and how they are planning to get back and keep their families safe during this time of COVID-19. What is more, Jason and Whitney also tap into the CBD for cats with anxiety, the “bulldog cleaner,” and the milk IPO. 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Preparing For A Camping Trip In This Time Of The Pandemic

It’s a beautiful, bright, sunny afternoon here in Los Angeles. Whitney, you’re going to be on a cross-country road trip. We have teased this in some previous episodes here on This Might Get Uncomfortable. If it’s your first time joining us, welcome. If you’re a longtime reader, we are going to dive into talking a little bit deeper about Whitney’s upcoming road trip all the way back to the east coast. We have teased this on previous episodes, especially talking about Whitney’s acumen, talent, and experience being an expert planner and some of the offshoots of perfectionism and feeling safe by being over-prepared for things in the contrast to my standard prep method, which is make it up as you go and hope for the best. What’s your emotional state around this road trip? How are you feeling about it? What’s your level of prep? What’s going on with you? How are you feeling about this whole thing?

We will be doing an episode summarizing the road trip. This is part one, the before. There’s an upcoming episode that will be the after, talking about what the experience was like. We may even have my travel companion on the show with us to talk about what it was like for her, too. I realized that I have this tendency to take on a lot. I get excited and ambitious about things. When I’m in the thick of it, part of me is like, “Why did I do this? Why did I take on this?” What’s interesting is I’m traveling with an intelligent, savvy, conscious friend, who is going to be a complete delight. She’s a great planner. She’s a great communicator. I’m looking forward to this with her.

She is wrapping up one trip. She did a mini road trip to the State of Utah. She’s coming from Utah to LA. I’m curious to hear about her experience because I have done a lot of road trips but I haven’t done much camping. In fact, I’ve only been in a tent a few times in that sense of camping. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in an RV or anything. I’m generally someone that stays in hotels and Airbnb. Now that I think about it, I used to love camping in the backyard at my friend’s house or my place. I always thought being in a tent was cool growing up.

I went to a horse camp when I was ten years old or something. We did one overnight camping trip, which brings back memories. It was an upscale place. It was new in New Hampshire. I grew up in Massachusetts. I had a pony because my mom and my sister are in the horse world. A huge part of my life centered around horses. My mom wanted me to be into horses. She got me a pony and she sent me away to horse camp. It wasn’t my thing. A few years later, I gave up horse riding to pursue other things in my life that I was passionate about.

The camp experience was cool. It was two weeks long. It was a nice camp, beautiful accommodations and all of that. One day, out of that whole two weeks, we went on overnight in tents. All I remember is two things from that tent experience which was there a thunder and lightning storm. We had set up camp next to a small body of water. I think our horses were with us but I’m like, “Where were they?” Maybe that’s my imagination. Maybe we didn’t bring them. I don’t recall. I do remember when there were the thunder and lightning that we had to hide in the woods and I was scared about it. I also have this bizarre memory, but it’s funny how these things get lodged in your brain. We’re having breakfast the next morning and they had those mini boxes of cereal. Remember those, Jason? I don’t know if they still make them but they were satisfying. Do you know what I mean? Is this bringing back a memory for you too, those tiny boxes of Kellogg’s brand cereal?

100%. They had them when I was at Space Camp. They had them when I was away at basketball camp. To piggyback on what you’re saying, it was like, “Kids are at camp, get the mini cereal boxes.”

Yes. It’s funny. I don’t know if the natural markets I shop at have those. I do go to some “standard” grocery stores, but they’re still on the posher side of it versus thinking about a standard grocery store that might have stuff like that. I also don’t look in the cereal aisle that much. I’ll go immediately to the natural collection of cereals, which they don’t have those many boxes. I don’t know for sure if they still make those. I remember having those as a kid and they only have 1 or 2 of each flavor. One of the other campers took the flavor of cereal that I wanted and I was disappointed. I remember that camping experience. The only other time I stayed in a tent, Jason, was with you that one night during the Lightning in A Bottle experience that we had. For those that don’t know, it’s like a multi-day music and arts festival. Is festival the right term for that?

It’s definitely a festival. It’s music, art, food, consciousness, meditation, and breathwork. It’s a mishmash of DJs, live bands, body painting, organic food, and drug use. It’s like Burning Man-esque, but not as severe of conditions in a desert. They have it in parks and campgrounds around LA. LIB is fun. I missed the festival thing, Whitney, being that I haven’t been to one of those in a few years. As a tangent, it always does feel like an adult camping. It’s funny you bring back these camp memories because I’m now thinking about all of my camp experiences as a kid and some funny crazy situations. You simply bringing up tiny boxed cereals from our childhood is now flooding all these memories back.

I hope the readers are experiencing that, too. I wonder why I haven’t done much camping. I’ve been curious about it. I haven’t intentionally avoided it. I’m excited to go on this trip because I’m going to be camping in my car. In my Tesla Model 3, they have a camp mode. It’s fascinating because, for me, being such a planner and researcher, I’ve been trying to prep myself as much as possible and haven’t found that much helpful information. I’m looking forward to documenting the experience. If you’re curious about what my trip is going to be like, there will be videos and social media posts. We’re going to do a whole episode about it. I’m probably going to write some blog posts. I want to share tips because I want more detailed summaries and tips and I find those hard to find. Granted, SEO plays a huge role in that, which means when you search for something unless you’re willing to go down the rabbit hole, you might not find what you’re looking for. I bet you, there’s some more information if I spent more time searching for it. I’m looking forward to trying it.

I am going to do a trial run of camp mode in my driveway, which I haven’t even had the time or given the time to think too much about. All I know is what time I’m going to get there. I’m going to configure the bed situation, which is not ideal. I wanted this Tesla Mattress and I’m still holding out hope that it’ll come through, but the company has not been the best about communicating with me. I don’t know if I’m going to get this mattress in time for my trip, which stresses me out a little bit. I’m using plan B, which is to use this fairly large mat that is designed for animals. It’s used for a dog. I washed it. I’m going to sleep on that. It’s not quite the length of my body. I have to figure out is the pillow going to compensate for how it doesn’t reach my neck. There are all those little minute details. This mat is cool because it doesn’t take up a lot of space. It’s thin. I hope that it will be not too thin that I can comfortably sleep on it.

I’m giving myself a full eight hours to get rest, to settle in. I don’t want to give myself too much time because I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep that full eight hours. We’ll see how camp mode goes. For me, I don’t know how much battery is going to drain from my car. That’s part of the experience. I don’t know what the sound is going to be like in there. I’m bringing in my White Noise Machine and hopefully, that’ll work well. There’s a lot that I’m going to figure out. Once I’ve done that, I’ll feel a little bit more confident about the trip.

My friend is going to be camping in Jason’s tent, next to my car on the trip. I feel a little bad about it because I’m going to be in this air-conditioned car with a mattress pad and maybe some more noise blockage from simply being in a car and plus being more protected from the elements perhaps. A part of me feels that’s like glamping, sleeping in a Tesla versus a tent. My friend doesn’t seem to care. She’s going to be fine. Hopefully, your camping equipment, Jason, stands the test of time for her.

I hope so, too. I haven’t asked you this and it might seem an obvious question, maybe a little bit. With all of the options to get back to the east, there’s not a ton of options but it’s like a road trip or flying. At the beginning of this episode, you talked about taking so much on and maybe feeling a little stressed and feeling a little overwhelmed. In the past few episodes, we’ve talked about stress and anxiety and overwhelm. In the reader’s mind, they might be like, “Why aren’t you flying back east? Why put yourself through all this?”

My curiosity, this is maybe a multi-layered question, why did you choose to do a cross country road trip versus taking your dog, Evie, and flying back east? Also, the safety considerations with each one because there have been some interesting articles. There was one that came out on Jalopnik.com. In this article, it was talking about the pros and cons versus flying versus road tripping. There was a lot of negative feedback in this article in the Comments Section. Not the actual article itself, but the comments. People are like, “The best thing to do is not travel at all.” There were a lot of fearful and negative comments. All of that is to ask, Whitney, why do this in a car and why didn’t you choose to get a cheap ass ticket and fly back?

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First of all, I wonder why you didn’t send me that article. I’ve been trying to read up about this. Most of what I’ve read and most of what I’ve heard from people that have traveled is that it’s been a good experience. I’ve had a few friends that have done road trips and they all returned safely and had nothing but positive things to say about it. That gave me confidence. I found a great article on Refinery29 about road tripping. They interviewed a bunch of different people about road trips. Every part that I’ve read has been encouraging. There’s that side of it.

There are certainly concerns. I’m not going on this trip thinking it’s going to be easy or fully safe, certainly not. I have traveled cross country a few times, including ones with you, Jason, a round trip from LA back to the east coast, and then back again to LA. I feel confident about that part. I’ve never taken my car, the Tesla, this far. The farthest that I’ve been was my road trip with Jason in 2019, which was 1,000 miles versus 3,000 miles. I’ve done about a third of this trip and my car was great, fingers crossed. Any car could have problems, but electric cars feel like there’s a little bit more at risk there. I’m getting my car looked at to make sure it’s in good shape. There’s a chance, what if they discover something’s wrong with the car and I can’t take the trip with it or I have to delay the trip? I don’t know. That’s a possibility. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

In terms of why drive instead of flying, tickets are cheap to fly. Frankly, I feel uncomfortable flying. Wearing a mask for probably what would be ten hours straight does not sound pleasant to me. I’m not trying to complain. I’m a big advocate for wearing masks but I have never worn a mask for that length of time. I get uncomfortable wearing my mask even for a few minutes. Breathing into your mask can be unpleasant. In taking walks, I feel uncomfortable with it and trying to talk to people. In general, I get a lot of anxiety about flying. I get anxiety about planning and anticipating, all these details, all of the things that could potentially go wrong, all the unexpected costs that could happen. The anxiety I have getting to the airport in time and checking in and then going through security and then getting to the gate and then get into your seat and settling into your seat and feeling comfortable.

I usually have a window seat. I’m always concerned about getting to the bathroom and climbing over other people. Did my luggage arrive on time? When’s that going to happen? All of those things, my mind doesn’t shut off for most of that trip and that is exhausting. If I’m going to have my mind on most of the time, I’d rather be in the car, driving, where I feel like I have a little bit more control and won’t have to wear my mask most of the time. I will be bringing my mask. I will have to take other types of precautions that I might not have to on the plane. The trip is a lot longer. Instead of ten hours, it’s ten days. We could have done it a lot faster. We could have probably done it in 4 or 5 days. We’re estimating ten days so that we can enjoy ourselves along the way.

In terms of the safety of it, to your point, Jason, I’ve heard similar things about flying versus driving. When you’re flying, you’re sitting in an enclosed space with tons of strangers versus me sitting in the car with a friend of mine who I’ve had a lot of deep conversations about what she’s doing. We’re getting COVID tests ahead of time. I’m going to know our results. Fingers crossed, we’re both negative. She’s being mindful versus all these other strangers on a plane. I’ve heard the airlines sometimes pack the flights full. You might have someone sitting directly next to you for a six-hour flight, that does not sound pleasant to me.

In terms of the things that I could get exposed to with charging my car and going to the bathrooms and getting food or all those other things, certainly, I have a lot higher chance because I’ll be traveling for ten days. I might get more exposed. On the airline, you’re stuck with those people that whole time and they’re breathing through the air, the air is being circulated. There are all these surfaces to touch. The airline experience I’ve heard is completely different than it used to be and that uncertainty makes me feel uncomfortable. Long story short, I’ve weighed out all the pros and cons. Lastly, the simplest answer is that I love driving cross country. I’ve been wanting to drive cross country with my car. I’ve been wanting to camp in my car. It felt like this was the most enjoyable way for me to get back and to see my family.

Ultimately, that’s important to me as long as I know I’m taking the best care of my health and not exposing them, which is a possibility. I could fly and still expose them as easily as driving. My plan in terms of protecting my parents, mainly who I’ll be staying with, luckily, they have a horse barn. Coming back to the horse conversation, there is a room in the horse barn that I can sleep in. It has a bed. I can sleep in there and self-quarantine myself. It’s got a bed, a bathroom, and a sink. It’s got some places to make food. I can have a glamping experience there. I’m going to get a COVID test as soon as possible. Once I get a negative result, fingers crossed, then I can go into the main house and be with my parents.

I have thought about all these things. I’m bringing a lot of cool things with me to protect myself. I have a set of reusable masks and I’m getting inserts for them. The mask that I have are from this wonderful brand called Canopy Verde. They have little pockets in them that you can insert filter. I’m also getting filters to put inside there and then I’ll remove those at the end of the day. If there’s ever a major exposure, I can swap those out at any point and wash the mask by hand. They dry quickly. I’ll have two of those with me. I’ll wash one or both of them at the end of each night and dry them while I’m sleeping. Because we’re traveling during the summer, the mask will probably dry in a matter of hours.

I have cool gloves from this company called Eco Gloves. They’re compostable disposable gloves. They come in little tiny packs. You put them on like any type of disposable gloves. I can use those at the Tesla charging stations or any other place where I might be in touch with more people. I have a hand sanitizer, which I will use a lot. Those three things are the main suggestions in every article I’ve read, including the CDC in terms of how to protect yourself while traveling. Washing your hands. One of the coolest things that I have for this trip is called Suds2Go. That is a special water bottle that has a soap dispenser on one side and you dispense soap in your hand and then turn the bottle over and rinse your hands and you have your own portable hand washing station to take in your car. I might not have to use a hand sanitizer that much because I’ll be able to bring a hand washing station around with me everywhere I go.

You’re telling me about stuff that I didn’t even know existed.

I didn’t know about this before the trip. That’s part of the fun.

It’s a cool confluence of your tech geekery, your eco-mindedness, and your desire to be prepared as hell for things. It’s interesting to see your process in real-time, Whitney. The other thing that came up for me as you were talking about the difference between going on a commercial flight versus taking your car across country, there’s been some fascinating images coming out online about the movie theaters reopening. You and I are huge fans of going out to the movies. Some of our favorite movie theaters are here in LA where we live. I’ve been geeked for the movie Tenet, the new Christopher Nolan movie, to finally come out. Apparently, it is coming out. It’s been a little bit concerning to me. This ties back into the commercial flying thing, the disinfectants that the commercial airlines, the movie theaters, and these public spaces are using for the seating surfaces and anywhere that there’s going to be human contact.

I went down the rabbit hole a little bit and I wanted to throw this out there for you, Whitney, and the dear reader in case you are thinking about doing a commercial flight or any of the movie theaters. There was an article on BoxOfficePro.com about theater sanitation measures. You go a little bit deeper into a resource about the EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency has a list of recommended and approved disinfectants for airlines and movie theaters and public spaces that have been found to be effective against COVID-19. You dig a little bit deeper and there are layers to this because you pull up the EPA article and it gives you a List N, which are products that are effective against emerging viral pathogens and human Coronavirus. I don’t know the effects of these ingredients. I need to do a layer deeper of research, but it lists things like quaternary ammonium and hypochlorous acid. I’ve never heard of that. There’s one thing I recognize, hydrogen peroxide phenolic.

There are 486 different chemical combinations that apparently are approved. My concern with this conversation that goes back to commercial flights, taking trains, taking public transportation, is we don’t know what these chemicals are going to do to our body unless we go and research them and cross-reference it against what are the airlines, movie theater change, and transportation company is using. It’s a bit of a catch-22 because, on one hand, you want the economy to restart. There are certain aspects of the industry, business, travel, and connections that humans are excited to get back to. We want some semblance of “normalcy” in life. It’s part of a bigger conversation that I’m concerned about what measures are we going to take to “protect” ourselves from COVID. What risk are we posing to our own health to try and protect ourselves against getting sick from COVID? It’s a tough compromise. All of this is to say you don’t have to worry about that by taking your own car. It does concern me, the idea of going back to the movies, taking flights again, these public spaces because who knows what chemicals they’re going to be using.

MGU 122 | Camping Trip

Camping Trip: When you travel, there’s always a chance that something really bad happens. If you give people identifying information, they might be able to track you down a lot faster.

 

That is another concern. For me, having a controlled environment, I certainly could have flown to see my parents. Remember that I would have to get to the airport and hopefully someone I know would drop me off. I wouldn’t want my parents to pick me up from the airport because I need to go to quarantine. I’d have to take some sort of shuttle or bus or something. I don’t even know for sure if they’re still running, the one that I used to take. I’m sitting with another group of strangers and another transportation source that might have chemicals.

The more I think about it, it would have been complicated for me to fly. I would have had to take that shuttle, which would drop me off 30 minutes from my parents, and then probably rent a car from there to get to my family. A lot of car companies are using all sorts of chemicals to clean their cars. Maybe this stuff has always happened in some capacity. It might not be brand new. I agree with your point, Jason. They’re going on a more intentional cleaning spree in any type of exposed environment. I worry too about the long-term impacts of that stuff. There’s a lot to weigh out. No wonder that the article says it’s best to stay home.

The other thing is that we’ve been dealing with COVID since February or March 2020 in the US. In Los Angeles, it got serious in mid-March. In early March, there was an awareness of it but mid-March it was like, “This is a big deal.” I’m not one of those people who thinks like, “I’m over COVID. I’m going to go live my life,” certainly not. My parents have been begging me to visit. They’re worried about COVID. They are valuing the time with their family much more because they’re getting older, that’s always a concern. Mortality is more in our face. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know when I’ll get another opportunity to see them. I have been thinking a lot about how important family is to me. Another huge reason that I’m taking my car is I can go out there for as long as I want to and decide when I come back. I’m going out there on an open-ended trip. The only thing that’s pressing for me, honestly, is the election.

I would like to be back in Los Angeles for the election so I can make sure I properly vote. I will probably look into getting an absentee vote just in case. I have to look into the whole process of voting and want to make sure that I’m intentional about that. Aside from the election, I’m not in a big rush to come back to Los Angeles. That is a luxury that you get through driving somewhere versus if I was flying. I could buy a one-way ticket, but it gets a little bit more complicated trying to fly back and all those other variables. Driving there gives me that flexibility and a lot more control versus me being exposed to all sorts of strangers and being exposed to however they’re cleaning their stuff. I get to bring my own cleaning products and I get to keep 6 feet distance hopefully, from any stranger where I might not have that option on some of these other transportation methods.

It’s always at moments, for me at least, with the road trip that we did, but also that you and I years ago did a cross-country road trip. I’ve done three full cross-country road trips and probably will do one more before it’s all said and done at least. For me, I’ve had trouble with sleep even at home. I’ve had insomnia issues on and off for the last couple of years. On one road trip, I did back in my old Honda Prelude, which was a coupe so there was no backseat to sleeping. I just reclined the front seat and slept in the front seat overnight on one cross country road trip I did.

Sleep has always been an issue for me. It’s like, “I don’t have my bed. I’m used to my bed. I’m used to my home environment.” I’m curious if you anticipate you’re going to have sleep issues being in your car. I know you’re doing the test run in your driveway. You mentioned the white noise machine. What are some of the other steps that you’re going to take to try and ensure that you have a good night’s sleep on this road trip? Are you worried you might not?

I’m not that worried because typically, I sleep well when I’m tired. I don’t have too many issues falling asleep or staying asleep. Noise is usually a concern. I’ll have that wonderful LectroFan assuming it works. That’s USB powered. My car in camp mode should power a USB device throughout the night. That’s one thing I’m testing and then I’m going to bring my sleep phones, which you can put over your head and play any type of audio you want, such as a white noise track. I’ll have that around just in case I need it plus my earplugs for a worst-case scenario. I don’t usually sleep with those or find them the best. I appreciate the white noise.

I’m also trying to rig up a curtain system in the car. Another thing that I’m waiting to find out is the same company that makes the Tesla mattress I want. I asked if I could get the privacy screen from them, which is designed specifically for giving you privacy but also blocking out some light so that you can sleep well, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. The good news is my travel companion and I are going to sleep when it’s dark and get up when it’s early. In anticipation of this trip, I’ve been getting up at 6:00 AM every day to prepare myself for getting up when the sun rises and it rises somewhere around 6:00 AM.

I’m prepping myself to fall asleep by 10:00 and get up at 6:00 AM. We’ll make sure that I’m on that sleep rhythm. The one thing I’ve got to figure out is the bathroom situation. What’s cool and fun is the female urination devices, which are these cups that women can use to urinate like a man would do standing up. As you know Jason, a lot of men will just pee on the side of the road or wherever. Since we’re going to be in camping places, we could go off into the acceptable area or if we need to use some public restroom, at least we don’t have to sit in the toilet seat.

Hopefully, that shouldn’t be an issue because I always like to pee before I go to sleep so that doesn’t keep me up. Lastly, I have been taking magnesium for years to help me sleep and that makes a huge difference. I started taking the magnesium from our sponsor, BiOptimizers and it is wonderful. It has helped me sleep well because it relaxes the body and relaxes the muscles. It helps with stress, reducing cortisol levels. It puts you in a more peaceful state, and because your muscles are relaxed, you have a tendency to sleep better, too.

That’s my secret, which I’m letting you all in on here. Taking some magnesium supplements for bed is helpful. I’ll have those with me and a little sip of water, not too much so I don’t have to pee in the middle of the night. With all of that, the white noise, blocking out light or sleeping during the dark and getting up at sunrise, having the magnesium, and then being as comfortable as I can, I feel confident that I’m going to sleep well.

With magnesium, are you only doing it before bedtime or are you also taking it throughout the day? What’s your dosage of it?

I haven’t thought about that. I take it right before bed. That’s been my routine for years and I switched over to BiOptimizers because we are fortunate enough to have them sponsoring this episode and a few episodes and they send us their amazing products. I’ve been taking their digestive enzymes and we’ve talked about their Gluten Guardian. I’m going to have that with me during the trip. They have some probiotics that I’ll be taking. All their products are going to be helpful for my trip because keeping my body in great shape where I can feel the least stress possible, I did not think about taking the magnesium at different times of the day. I’m used to taking it up before bed and I need to stay super alert since I’ll be doing all the driving.

My friend that I’m traveling with does not drive so she’s truly there to keep me company and enjoy the experience with me. I’ll be in charge of all the driving and thus, having a fair amount of caffeine. Sleeping is important. I need to make sure I rest well and one of the huge benefits of taking magnesium is it promotes restful sleep. Hopefully, if everything works out right, I’ll sleep like a baby and wake up super energized. Do you take magnesium at different times of the day, Jason? I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this.

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I have taken magnesium in conjunction with some other supplements to help maintain regularity. There was a Cal-Mag shop that I used to make sometimes when I would get constipated and I’ve noticed for me that as a side benefit, magnesium helps with regularity. Generally, I’ll take it right before bedtime because I noticed it lowers cortisol and helps with my central nervous system. As a side benefit, it helps with blood flow to all of the parts of the body so it’s great for heart health and vascular health. During the daytime, I’ve used it as a supplement to help with regularity, Whitney.

I heard this years ago and I wanted to put this out. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, Whit, but there’s an article on WellAndGood.com that caffeine and coffee can have a potentially deleterious effect on your magnesium levels. There are some research studies that show that when you drink coffee, your intestinal lining has a drop in its ability to absorb magnesium so you might want to take extra magnesium, Whitney. The cool thing about the BiOptimizers’ formula is that it has seven different forms of magnesium in it, which is different from most formulas which are only 1 or 2.

It’s going to be interesting to see with Magnesium Breakthrough, if you’re doing caffeine, maybe you’re going to take extra to compensate for the caffeine affecting your intestinal lining and perhaps making it not easier to absorb. Maybe you’re bombarding that and using the BiOptimizers supplement because from what we’ve seen, it’s the most complete magnesium supplement out there. I’ve never seen one that has all seven forms, so you might want to go a little bit heavy on that and see how that combats the caffeine intake. I would put that out there. I always like to insert some nutrition geekery in every episode.

That’s good to know. I don’t want my coffee to be taken away from me because I enjoy it so much. Although on this trip, I will be a little out of my routine. There are two types of coffee that I’ll be having. One is a premade coffee latte from Elmhurst, which is a brand that we love, and also, I’m bringing some instant coffee to make it super easy. I don’t know off the top of my head if that works with both cold and hot water. Imagine cold water, too. I’ll have my little motorized whisk with me. That’s my backup in case we run out of the coffee lattes or just want a different form.

I’m also going to have this cool brand called Celsius which makes these energizing caffeinated drinks and they’re delicious. They’re sending me their peach mango green tea, which I love so much. It peps and perks me up and it gives me energy quickly in a different way than coffee does. I’m also going to have Pique Tea. Their jasmine tea, which I love is one of the most incredible tasting jasmine teas I’ve ever had. It’s all organic and it comes in these instant tiny little packs. All you do is add it to water. It’s not a teabag, and that could be added to cold or hot water, so that’ll be convenient. I have a number of different forms of caffeine to keep me alert, but I love the taste of all those things, too. That’s good to know about magnesium. I wonder if you think that’s true with caffeine in general or specifically coffee, Jason.

In this Well+Good article, they interviewed a gastroenterologist and it mentioned coffee specifically, so I don’t know if it’s something endemic to the coffee bean that causes this potential blockage of absorption of magnesium. Just in case, you may as well take some extra dosages of Magnesium Breakthrough during the day and see how you feel or maybe right after you drink the coffee. Take 1 or 2 and see how it does. I’d be curious to see if it makes any difference in how you feel. For the readers, if you have never tried any kind of magnesium supplement before, we wholeheartedly recommend BiOptimizers. Whitney has already had experience with it and she’s going to be passing some my way.

If you want to take advantage, we have a special coupon code here on the podcast for you to save 10% on your order. If you want to try their Magnesium Breakthrough, HCL, proteolytic enzymes, and all the products that we’ve been experimenting with and loving so far, we have a special website setup and a code that we will share with you. The website is BiOptimizers.com/wellevatr. When you go there, enter the coupon code WELLEVATR10 and you will save 10% on your entire order.

Also, Whitney, the thing about the road trip, too, is I mentioned my constipation thing and using magnesium for constipation. There’s no such thing as TMI here on This Might Get Uncomfortable but I remember one of my biggest concerns on the three cross country road trips that we were taking other than say, back pain and stiffness from driving too long was getting constipated. I’ve noticed that my regularity on trips in general but especially road trips get dramatically affected. I’m curious if you anticipate that that might be something that could be a concern for you and if you want to use the magnesium to try and maintain regularity because it’s been awesome for me.

I have been thinking about that. I usually don’t have that issue that you have. I love traveling with a squatty potty but I’m not sure that that’s going to come in handy because I’m going to be squatting in the woods so I borrowed a little shovel to dig a hole or put it in some bags. I’m going to learn a lot about going to the bathroom.

Did you borrow a poop shovel from someone?

It’s a gardening shovel. It’s not going to hopefully touch my poop. It’ll be used to dig the hole and then cover it up.

Do they know that you’re going to use it to scoop poop?

I’m not sure. I decided to leave that part out, but it will be thoroughly cleaned before it’s returned or maybe I’ll let them know what it was used for and if they ask me to replace it, I will. It was more for convenience, so I’m not going to have to go buy a shovel in the midst of all this stuff I have to do. You have to dig 6 to 8 inches and you can bury it but I have to double-check all the regulations about defecating in nature. I’m also going to have my dog’s waste bags, so I wonder if those would suffice. I know that if you do put it in a trash can, it has to be a certain type, which most camping sites have. I’m going to learn all about that. Thank goodness I’m traveling with a friend who’s had some experience.

The Squatty Potty is great when I’m using the toilet. I won’t be using it in public restrooms, but I’ll use it when I’m at my parent’s place. It folds up. I’m used to using Squatty Potty these days and I don’t like being without one. I know you didn’t mean this, Jason, but BiOptimizers has a constipation supplement that they gave us as well. I have not tried it because I haven’t been constipated but I’ll probably take a few of those with me. It’s called ConstiCleanse and it’s meant to cleanse your body so that you’re no longer constipated. I’ll bring that along with the magnesium. Generally coffee and magnesium do the trick for me though. I have not had a problem in a long time going to the bathroom regularly.

MGU 122 | Camping Trip

Camping Trip: We’re unfortunately never truly away from dangers. They’re kind of looming over us.

 

In fact, that’s more of the concern, waking up and needing to use the restroom right away and trying to figure out where that’s going to be in the early mornings. I usually don’t have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, maybe pee but generally, I can hold both types of elimination during the night so we’ll see. It’s nature so I’m not the only one that has this question. I know I’ll figure it out and I’m not concerned. Staying hydrated is one of the biggest keys and not going too far off my diet. I’m grateful to have the BiOptimizers enzymes for most food plus gluten-based food if I choose to have any of that. That can tend to mess up my digestion a little If I don’t take enzymes, and then the probiotics help keep my digestion on track, too.

Honestly, it’s perfect timing that we’re working with BiOptimizers because I will be able to take all these different products for different reasons and I can’t wait to report back because I feel like that’s going to be quite the testimonial for them. In terms of being hydrated, I’m super excited because I’m going to be bringing multiple water bottles. I’ll fill it up with filtered water before we leave Los Angeles and hopefully, we’ll find some other filtered water along the way, but I’m not counting on it. It’ll depend on the campsite and it’ll depend on if we go to restaurants.

It’s going to be different. I haven’t traveled during COVID yet, and then we also are bringing LifeStraw with us, which is a brand that I’ve been using for the past few years. They make these thick straws and they’re effective that some people drink out of streams with them. You can take them to different countries. They don’t filter out viruses as far as I’m aware, but they filter out most major things that would be of concern. For me, I’m going to try to get the best quality water no matter what. The LifeStraw is an extra form of safety.

We will have cans of MAD TASTY sparkling water which do not replace pure water but it’s nice to have to stay hydrated. The MAD TASTY sparkling waters are unsweetened and contain CBD, which will be good for keeping my stress at bay as well. I’ve tried to think of everything here. Even though this trip has developed quickly, I’m amazed at what I’ve been able to figure out in just about a week since I started planning this trip.

Two other questions that have come up. Our special featured guest on the road trip is a secret that will be revealed in a future episode. For you and her, have you both discussed strategically stopping at specific restaurants on the way? Whitney, I know you’re super passionate as am I, as is our mutual friend who’s coming with you about trying either favorite restaurants that we’ve loved from the past or new ones you’ve never tried before. Have you laid out that part of it in terms of where you’re going to be dining out?

Not yet because our mutual friend volunteered to do that work and seems excited about doing that. She hasn’t been able to do it yet, because she’s been traveling. She’ll be in Los Angeles and she’s going to start researching restaurants and helping figure out where we’re going to camp. We’re going to be using Hipcamp and a few other websites to find camping and reserve that. Once we’ve reserved those areas, we’ll have a better idea of where we’re going to be and when we can determine what restaurants we could potentially stop at. I’m unattached. Personally, I would rather not go to restaurants. Certainly, we would get takeout or dine outdoors and be cautious of that but that puts us in more contact with other people.

I tried to get some dehydrated food from a few brands but neither one of them came through A, because we’ve only had a week to plan this and B, because most of the camping food companies are out of stock. A lot of people are either camping or buying that food to have at their house as part of their emergency preparedness. That’s the hardest thing to get. I might go to a camping store and try to buy some or something or we can use dehydrated products. I love the brand, Dr. McDougall’s. Jason knows this and he likes to laugh about it because it’s old school vegan food but they have little cups with dehydrated food and you pour hot water in them but that adds another issue that I have not figured out yet which is where do we get the boiling water from?

That I don’t know and I have two ideas for that. One is there are a few electric kettles that you can plug into the twelve-volt aka cigarette adaptor spot in the car but the kettles are a little on the pricey side, usually around $50 and none of them seem that great. The other is an electric coil. It’s a stainless-steel coil that you can plug into that 12-volt part of your car and stick into the water and it heats it up. Those are inexpensive. They’re $10 to $15 but a lot of people complain that they’re not that powerful. There have been a lot of reviews.

I’m willing to roll the dice so I’m probably going to get one of those because they’re so inexpensive. The thing that I want that I don’t think is going to happen is, there’s this company called Cauldryn who makes the coolest smart mug and it’s basically a large size travel mug that you can heat up coffee, tea, boil water and as well as heat up foods soups in it. It has an adapter to blend ice. It’s cool. It’s all battery-powered and there’s a special charger for the car. I reached out to them to see if I could get one in time and I’m waiting to hear back. I don’t think it’s going to happen so I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but it’s neat.

On the same note on the opposite end of the spectrum, it certainly would be cool to bring fresh food with us. If we did go to a restaurant or a grocery store to pack prepared foods, but the trick is going on a camping trip we’re not going to have access to freezers. Typically, when I’ve traveled, I’ve stayed in hotels or Airbnb so you can get a refrigerator in a freezer from the hotel or house that you’re in. Since we’re not doing that, we can’t continuously freeze ice packs and use a cooler. However, there are now travel refrigerators and coolers that you can get. That’s also another thing that I’ve been considering is getting one of those and trying to decide do I want to spend the money on it? I’m leaning towards yes, because I’d rather have a cooler than a heating mechanism.

We could stock up at a couple of different grocery stores along the way and have tons of fresh food and if the cooler works well enough, which I based on the reviews I’ve read, it will then we could have fresh food at our hands throughout the whole trip. That’s something I would use a lot because I like road trips and in general being in the car with transportation and stuff. How many times are you like, “How do I keep something cool from the grocery store?” You’re driving an hour and you need it to stay cool. Pun intended and lack of a better word cool to have a car bass cooler so that’s part of the fun this trip too. A lot of these things I’m trying to think long-term. How would I use them and is there an actual investment worth making something that I could use for a long time and be multipurpose?

I’m going to get into dad mode for a second. Two things. Are you packing a basic first aid kit with any ointment, band-aids, gauze scissors things like that? Second, this is not even road trips but summertime travel in general. It seems that whatever arm is facing the sun gets an inordinate amount more sun exposure then whatever part of your body or the other arm is on the interior of the car so are you bringing sunblock or using a sunshade? How are you going to compensate for those so you or our dear friend your passenger is not going to get burned depending on which way the sun is facing? First aid kit and sun or burn protection?

I’ve thought about that as well so I don’t have tinted windows on my car. I thought about getting them, it’s not enough time. They’re also quite expensive and there are all sorts of regulations about how tinted your windows are and all that stuff. For lack of time. money and research, I didn’t do that. Instead, I’m getting sent some sun shades that you can put on the windows of the car. A brand is sending them to me to try out and I haven’t received them yet so I’m not going to say who the brand is because who knows, it might not even happen so I will reveal that information in our follow-up episode. There are a number of companies that make sunshades and that’ll help a lot. What was the first part of the question?

It was about a basic first aid kit for cuts and burns. Band-Aids, gauze and the whole basic enchilada.

Even if you're choosing not to travel right now, you can still live vicariously. Click To Tweet

I have a number of those. I have a ton of band-aids and I have the gauze. I have that in my car already. I have to double-check that thanks for the reminder but I have more Band-Aids than I know what to do with and little first aid kits and sewing kits and that thing. I also am going to be bringing Mace with me speaking of safety, in case. We need it traveling as women and I have a whole checking system that I’ll use to touch base with friends and family to let them know where I am and make it make sure that we get to each destination. I’m going to have location services turned on and Jason you’re welcome to be part of my small group of friends who could check-in and see where I am out of curiosity/concern.

I even found a flight attendant who was talking about how she prepared an emergency information document to give to her loved ones that contain vital information about herself in case anything happened she disappeared. The reason being that, when you travel, there’s always a chance that something bad happens and if you give people identifying information, they might be able to track you down a lot faster. She had this wonderful list of all of the information to provide somebody so if they needed to enlist the police, for example, the police would have access and you wouldn’t be scrambling to find this information because during any crime time is of the essence. If that can be provided upfront, they might be able to locate you a little quicker, which let’s hope I don’t run into that issue. In general, I think that’s an important thing to do in terms of emergency preparedness.

Anything can happen to us at any time. It’s like what you’re saying, Jason, travel is a concern at any time not only during a pandemic. Dangerous things happen. Mistakes and accidents happen. Those things can happen when we’re at home as well. Unfortunately, we’re never truly safe from those dangers. They’re looming over us and that was part of the reason I’m doing this. I trust that things are going to be okay. I’m doing my research. I’m trying to think of all these different scenarios. I’m also trying to live my life when I have it and spend time with the people I care about while they’re around. None of us are promised anything. We do have to take risks and this trip doesn’t feel that risky to me, but there are certainly some scenarios that are unknown and I’m going to do my best to take great care of my body and my safety throughout the way.

How many days are you anticipating that this will take?

About ten days. I’ll be figuring that out in the next couple of days. We’ll be planning out the whole trip and where we’re going to stop along the way. I want to stay open to what if we’re having so much fun and we want to stay an extra day somewhere. That would be beautiful. I don’t normally have that experience or maybe we’re not enjoying it anymore and we want to wrap it up sooner. That’s what’s cool about taking a road trip. You can be flexible. My friend and I have put aside fifteen days in total. Not for the whole trip, but maybe if we leave earlier than planned, we have some flexibility there. We’ll see. Some of those things to be determined and shared in that upcoming road trip summary show we’re going to do plus the video.

I’ll be doing content about this trip to share with you if you’d like to see the visuals of the photos and the videos of the experiences. I’ll be talking about all the products and my experiences without those and all the sites that I’ve seen so even if you’re choosing not to travel now you can still live vicariously. I certainly love watching travel videos and try not to get jealous but feel inspired by them or grateful that I can see things that I might not choose to do or places to go.

Consider this dear reader the trailer for the road trip that Whitney is going to be on. This is the equivalent of the movie trailer so we’re teasing you, we’re giving you a preview. When Whitney is there and on the way back we’re going to give you all the details. I am a little bit envious, Whitney. I wish I could origami fold myself and stow in your trunk but I’ve got other things that need to be tended to in LA. I will also be living vicariously through your experience. On that note, as we are getting toward the finish line of this episode, I want to do any brand shootouts off the top of our dome and get to a few of our frequently asked queries before we wrap up.

The first brand I want to give a shout out to that I shot a commercial for. In an upcoming episode, once the commercial is done, we’ll probably link to it in the show notes. I shot a commercial for Outstanding Foods. Our friends, Bill Glaser and Dave Anderson run this company and they make the PigOut Pigless Pork Rinds. They’re made from a blend of pea protein and spices. There are 25 grams of protein per 3.5-ounce bag and they sent me a couple of their new and reformulated flavors. I’ve been a fan of their stuff. Their original is good. They have a nacho cheese and a Texas barbecue that’s smoky and good, but they sent me their brand-new salt and vinegar flavor and they reformulated their Hella Hot.

It was interesting because I remember having a conversation with Bill, who’s their CEO at the beginning of 2020 when we saw him at The Fancy Food Show in San Francisco which unfortunately was the only trade show of the year that didn’t get canceled because it was before the lockdown here. He was talking about, “How do you like the Hella Hot?” I’m like, “It’s not that hot.” I have a high tolerance for heat and spice so when I have something that they say is hot I’m like, “This isn’t that hot.” They dialed up the tang, vinegar, the hotness, and this the spiciness of the Hella Hot and it’s good now. My two favorite flavors are the Texas Barbecue and the Hella Hot because they’re smoky, tangy, and spicy.

I like that the company keeps on innovating, reformulating, and coming up with new things. I also got to preview that they are coming up with a new product which apparently is going to be a multivitamin in snack form. That’s all I know. For me, that’s all I can say. I didn’t sign an NDA so I can’t reveal all that much more but they’re cool and I love that they went for a segment of the market with that. You don’t think about vegan pork rinds and I don’t even think there’s another brand out there. Previous to this, I’ve only tried pork rinds once and I was a junior in high school and I may or may not have been drunk or at a party. I never was a big pork rinds fan, even when I was eating animal products. I feel my experience with them is cool because I’m appreciating it for what it is. I’m curious, have you ever tried? You’re going to love this inside joke. Have you ever tried pork rinds or their other name Chicharrones?

Actual non-vegan pork rinds? I don’t think so. I don’t recall. There is one other brand that did exist. I don’t know if they still do it was called Cracklins and they were vegan pork rinds as well but I wouldn’t be surprised if Outstanding Foods put them out of business. Outstanding Foods has such great marketing, flavors, and all that. It’s not something you see frequently. Vegan pork, in general, is not that popular. Bacon counts. There’s a number of vegan bacon but still not that much. There’s so many vegan chickens, beef, and fish alternatives but pork is still a category that hasn’t been that dominated. It’s the same with seafood. There’s some vegan seafood but a lot of it’s not great aside from Good Catch, which we love. Sophie’s Kitchen has some great products too. There’s a lot of room for innovation in the plant-based world so it’s exciting to see all these developments.

Let’s do Frequently Asked Queries. What do you have for this episode for us?

I don’t know if I have any that’s related to camping or traveling because we haven’t talked about it that much. What order do you want to go on? We are serious, interesting, and funny as usual.

Let’s do serious, funny then interesting.

MGU 122 | Camping Trip

Camping Trip: There are certainly some scenarios that are unknown but just go and do your best to take great care of your body and safety throughout the way.

 

You’re switching it up. I like that. Serious first. I thought this was an interesting thing. I can’t remember if we brought this up already, though, Jason. Forgive me. Either this is something people are interested in and they’ve asked. They’ve typed in Google a few times for our show. CBD for Cats with Anxiety. I feel we talked about this already, but I don’t know if we are specifically talking about CBD for cats.

Maybe we mentioned it. I vaguely remember it. We’re 122 episodes deep so the episodes get a little bit murky and melded together dear reader, but perhaps we were talking about it around July 4th, and how much anxiety, fear and terror the fireworks were. The fireworks were, at least in my neighborhood in LA, horrific that extra bad. I ended up giving them the brand was Alpen Organics. They have CBD for pets and I gave about 10 to 12 drops to all of my cats and my French Bulldog Bella and it legitimately made a significant difference. To the reader, or if the person who typed that query is reading this episode, I have found CBD for dogs and cats effective in relation to loud noises fireworks. 2020 sounded like a war zone and my neighbors so I’m a big fan of CBD for companion animals.

I used CBD for my dog Evie and that seems to work although not enough where I decided to do it regularly. Speaking of animals, the one that I thought was funny, especially because it was specific and it’s put in quotes, and when you put something in quotes into a Google search that means that you want that exact phrase. The exact phrase somebody typed in is Bulldog Cleaner.

Bulldog Cleaner meaning a product to clean a bulldog with or were they looking for Bulldog skincare for men? They have a body wash.

It looks like there might be a car and truck wash soap called Bulldog, but it is funny when I went to the website after searching for this myself. They didn’t type wash correctly they said “was” so it says Car and Truck Was Soap. Maybe not a big product because if it was somebody probably would have caught that error. I don’t see any definitive searches that make me think it’s a brand so maybe they were trying to figure out how to clean their Bulldog.

Here’s a funny thing. I use, on my own body, a body wash from a brand called Weleda. They’ve been around for a long time in the natural products industry and they have a baby body wash and shampoo combo that’s a calendula scent. When I was going through my years of eczema, it was the only soap that I could find that wasn’t irritating my skin because my eczema a few years ago was so bad that any other soap would irritate and sting my skin. I found that exact baby soap is good for this baby. It’s good for the baby Bulldog. I use that same baby soap when I give Bella a bath. I do the whole Frenchie protocol where I put cotton balls in her ears in those big old radar dishes going to Mars to make sure no water gets in her ears. I use the same baby soap for my adult human body as I do for my baby Frenchie and it works great. Shout out Weleda.

Great to know. We’re always learning something new. I don’t have a ton of interesting queries, believe it or not, they’ve often fallen into the funny or serious category but one is interesting and ties into something we’ve been talking about which is Oat Milk IPO. I was briefly talking about oat milk earlier because Elmhurst is sending me their oat milk lattes. It’s been an interesting time for oat milk as we see the market share is growing. Years ago, I remember trying oat milk for the first time and thinking this is revolutionary, but I never expected it to become as big as it has. I figured it would be the equivalent of almond, soy, and coconut milk. None of those have gained the traction that oat milk has and it’s outstanding.

Fascinatingly, most fascinating, most fascinatingly, I don’t know words. Oatly, who’s the OG and also probably the most well-known brand of oat milk out there. They, at least as far as we could tell when you haven’t tracked them for the few years, kicked off this revolution in the US market. Early 2020, they raised $200 million in investment capital from Blackstone, which is apparently a huge venture capital firm, and Oprah Winfrey also invested hundreds of millions of dollars. They, Oatly, are planning in 2021 to kick off an IPO on the stock market. They also, and this is a rumor that’s going around and there’s a Forbes article. If the stock market takes a significant dip and takes a major hit, who the hell knows what’s going to happen with the crazy world that we’re in now.

They are also considering potentially selling out to one of the big dairy markets but I don’t think that that’s a good idea because you see the revenues of a lot of the major dairy companies tanking in terms of the number of people that are getting non-dairy milk. It’s interesting to see that. Interesting info about Oatly looking at raising money for an IPO in 2021, if they do, I will invest. I love their product. I went to a grocery outlet and got a half gallon for $1.99. I was like, “Thank you.” I’m a big fan of Oatly. If they do an IPO, I will get some stock, and here’s to seeing more plant-based healthy companies with successful stocks out there. It’s amazing.

We love Beyond Meat. We love to see a lot of healthy plant-based companies doing well financially because it creates more demand and reduces animal cruelty, factory farming, and the strain on the environment. Huge hope for Oatly in 2021 and a big successful IPO. With that said, dear reader, we are reminding you of our wonderful sponsor BiOptimizers and their great enzymes. They’re wonderful products we mentioned in this episode, including the HCl. We talked a little bit about the ConstiCleanse and what Whitney has been loving. I’m going to get, finally, for the first time which is amazing is the Magnesium Breakthrough that has seven forms of magnesium.

It’s great for stress, your immune system, normalizing your heart rhythm, lowering those cortisol levels when you get stressed out. From what we’ve seen, it is the most complete magnesium supplement on the market. We’re huge fans of not only their magnesium but their ConstiCleanse, HCL, the proteolytic enzymes, anything you want. Go to our special website, which is BiOptimizers.com/wellevatr and when you go there, use the coupon code WELLEVATR10 and you will save 10% on whatever you want. So far so good Whitney, I love their products. They’ve been good for me. We haven’t even talked about my gout recovery, which maybe we’ll save for the next episode and how they’re proteolytic enzymes and MassZymes products are good at helping me lower the uric acid levels in my system. We’ll save that for another episode.

Until that episode dear reader, we appreciate you getting uncomfortable with us and enjoying this trailer for Whitney’s road trip. For all of the resources we mentioned, all of the research articles, all of the books, the BiOptimizers, any of the shout outs we did, you can go to our website, which is Wellevatr.com. Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For those of you who have done so, thank you so much for that support and your glowing reviews. You can find out how to email us which is [email protected]. DM us on all of the social media platforms we’re on all the biggies. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube, all the biggies as well.

 

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