Welcome to the Jodi Mayberry show, last episode. Our guest was Bob Weiss, the author of Dream Chasing, and he is back with us as I like to do when there's a guest on the show. Bob is back to ask me 3 questions. These questions are not prompted by me, not encouraged by me, not planted by me. I don't even know what we're going to talk about, but I do know it will be a great conversation because Bob is with us. Welcome back, Bob. Great to be
back. And now I get to ask the questions now. I like this even better. Alright. Well, let we'll just get right into it. What's your first question? Well, first first question, does this doesn't count as my question. I just ask you to reprise for the audience where your park ranger career was set and where you live now. Okay. This is like a update. This is not my question. Alright. As an update, I was a park ranger for 8 years in the state of Washington,
which I've learned as I've traveled. If you're from Washington state and you're east of the Mississippi, you have to say Washington state. Otherwise, people start talking about the Smithsonian. So I was a park ranger in Washington state 4 years in a park very close to Idaho, 4 years out on the Olympic Peninsula, which is 3 months out of the year. This is absolutely the best place in the country. I believe it. So I'm going to ask you my first question, sir.
2 of your most famous visitors in history came all the way from the East Coast to find a path across the country. Their names, I'll tell you, were Lewis and Clark. What were their full names? Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. So William Clark, did he have a middle name? William you know that? I'm sure he did, but I don't think I know it. No. It's a trick question. Oh, it's a trick question. Now you're just trying to tell me. William Clark William
Clark did not have a middle name. Okay. Lewis Lewis Meriwether Clark had that great name. Now they're both from the same state. What state is that? Virginia. But what is the state that is most associated with William Clark With William Clark. For most of his life? Missouri. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. No. That's that's it. No. Bing. It's Kentucky. Kentucky. Alright. When he was, when he was a young teen,
his family moved him to Kentucky. So these guys braved black flies, mosquitoes, freezing cold starvation, came across the country through Idaho that you know well through finally got to Washington, undoubtedly just kissing the sand of a Columbia River saying, thank God we made it. What did they do? What did they do? They well, I'm not sure where you're leading me, but they camped at Fort Clatsop. They built a little fort, and they wintered over in Fort Clatsop with a salt works in near what is
well not a yeah, it would be Astoria somewhere over in there. So that's what they did. They wintered over in Fort Clatsop. The amazing thing that I accept that answer. But the amazing thing about them, in addition to that answer, is that after all they went through, they turned around and they went all the way home the same way. Isn't that unbelievable? That is unbelievable. And I That they nearly lost their lives. They nearly lost, you know, so many things. And but what else they gotta
do? They they turned around and went all the way back home. Yeah. It is a fascinating story, and it delights me that you are Lewis and Clark enthusiast because the I don't live anywhere near their route. I've been to many places along their route, and it is it is just wonderful. And to think that they did that 2 years, which is perhaps a bigger deal than going to the moon in 1969, perhaps. And that they the only person they lost was someone from appendicitis. That's it's just incredible to
think what they they pulled off. And there's so many places you can still go along their route that look very similar to what it did back then. Yeah. I took I took the trip across the Lolo Trail, which is one of the areas where they they nearly died and they went on they were on horseback and went across the Lolo Trail and they
were running out of food. And, and it was really the it was really, I think the Mandan Indians that were native to that area that were responsible for them surviving and making it making being successful with their trip. But I did that. I did that trip 9 days on horseback. Oh my goodness. Wonderful. With a, with a curator emeritus from the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. So it's one of the great trips in my life. I I loved it. But the appreciation that you have of I asked my my
questions, I think. But the appreciation you have for for great storytellers of which you as a national park person know is the ability to stand anywhere, stand on a rock, stand on a field, and make history come to life for people. So now I'm gonna put you on the spot. Last question. What's one of your favorite stories that you talk about or did talk about when you could stand there and just make something come to life for somebody? Well, I will tell you one
that I only got to tell once. And you would think, how could it be your favorite if you only got to tell it once? When I moved from Eastern Washington to Western Washington, I did a lot of research because I thought, oh, I'm gonna have to tell a whole new set of stories. I'm gonna have to to learn new landmarks, new animals. And captain George Vancouver was the first to explore this area, the first European to really go in-depth in this area, 17/93.
And I read a lot about Captain Vancouver thinking, well, I'm gonna end up talking about Captain George Vancouver all the time. And one of the parks I was at, Captain Vancouver had come ashore right in this very Marestone Point, And that's where he named Mount Rainier as he was standing on Marestone Point. And I thought, well, Marestone Point is in the park. I'm going to have to tell that story all the time. And I I did my research. I rehearsed it. I was ready. And in 4 years, no one had
asked ever. I didn't. I underestimated how little Americans care about a British explorer. And no one ever asked. And one time I was on Maristone Point in uniform, walking towards my truck and a vehicle pulled up real slow and a window rolled down. And a gentleman in a British accent said, Excuse me, do you happen to know anything about George Vancouver? And I said, sir, please turn
your car off. We've got some talking to do. And I spent 30, 40 minutes talking about George Vancouver, how he stood on this spot, where the ship was named Mount Rainier from this very spot. Only time I ever got to tell that story, but very memorable because I was so ready for it and waited for years for the chance to tell that story. It's
awesome. That's great. And I think that's, to me, the epitome of National Park Rangers or curators and museums or people that are out preserving and telling history to people or history or science or whatever is the opportunity to to tell someone something in the context when they're standing there, when they're standing there looking at Mount Rainier. He will never forget that moment because you you told him right
there. Right. That that the opportunity to capture someone's imagination at this golden time when they happen to be there is an unbelievable opportunity. And that is those are those things that people will remember the rest of their lives. I so appreciate you saying that because I've always felt for that one family in that car, that story at that moment in that spot made their vacation.
And perhaps I'm giving myself too much credit. But imagine that, traveling all the way from Britain, knowing of George Vancouver, wanting to learn about George Vancouver, and you get over here and there's nothing. You cannot find any information about him. And so what do you do? You ask a park ranger because that's what you do when you're in a park. And I feel confident had they asked any other park ranger in that park, they would have got, oh, I'm sorry.
I don't know. But they happened to ask me, and I was ready. And it it made my day, and I hope it made their vacation. Well, they don't know that you didn't tell that story 20 times a day. They're not aware that that's the only time you ever got to tell that story. But that's one of the great things too, is that even if it was a story that you told 20 times a day, your responsibility is to make it fresh for them. You were lucky. That was the first time
you told it, and you had all this preparation. You were glad to be able to tell it. But it's almost as almost harder sometimes to tell people who say the same thing every day because they're sitting at, you know, Valley Forge or they're sitting someplace where, you know, people are going by and they're asking maybe a lot of the same questions is to care about every visitor's question. Or in the in Disney lingo, you care about every guest
question and to be there for them. You know, it's their day. It's their it's not about you. It's their day. And you have the opportunity to make their vacation. Well, on both sides of that, they happen at parks. They happen at Disney. How, like, how many times a day at Magic Kingdom as a cast member asked, what time is the 3 o'clock parade? And in a park, if you you I used to tell the staff that reported to me, look, it may be
the 13th time today you get asked that question. It is the first time they have ever asked it and they would deserve a response equal to them asking for the first time. And then the other side Completely. The the other side is the experience created for the one visitor who happened to ask about George Vancouver. Imagineers do that too. I know you put details in your designs that 1 in 10000 people will notice, but the one that
does, it absolutely delights them. And well, and if you don't, you will get a letter from somebody that says you got that wrong. And so, you know, you endeavor to do things authentically and in detail for that reason because you want people to get it right. You want people to realize that you cared enough to get it right. Yeah. It's great. And it reminds me of I've been on Main Street many times. Only one time have I been on Main Street with Jeff Knoll, who was a Disney
Institute keynote speaker for 15 years. And we walked by the mailbox at the end on the right. And you can put letters in there and mail them. And as we walked by, he said, when you open this mailbox to put a letter in, do you think it squeaks or it doesn't squeak? And I said, oh, it probably doesn't squeak. And he said, but if you were on Main Street in small town, Missouri, would it squeak? I said probably. And
then he opened it and it squeaked. And and he said, most people don't notice, but the ones that do, it delights them. And and That's awesome. Yeah. I just love it that Disney's full of that. And even in parks, we have the same thing, this idea of being park like. And you wouldn't expect that keeping things looking natural is a park ranger intervention. For example, at a trailhead, you don't want cars driving onto the trailhead. So maybe you block it off with a boulder on each side,
but a boulder sitting on top of the ground does not look natural. It is not park like. So what do you do? You dig a little indention and you put the boulder in the indention because that's how you see things in nature and and parks intervene to make parks look like a park. That's what we do. That's what rangers and park staff do is we just if you want the park experience, there are many times we have to intervene to make it park like. But you also have to preserve what it is that
makes it authentic. Yeah. That's great. That's right. Alright, Bob. I I wasn't keeping track, but I feel like we've probably have done 3 questions. And I liked every one of them. I think we have. Good. Well, I wanna take a moment to promote the book again, Dream Chasing by Bob Wise. I traced chased a dream and became a park ranger, and I'm still talking about it all these years later. So you can find Dream Chasing anywhere you get books. And, Bob, it it was so generous of you to come back for a
second episode. And, hopefully, this is not the last because I still have all these notes that we didn't get to the last time we talked. Well, I'd love to do it, and I hope all those people that have their own dreams will shoot me a note and tell me how their dreams are working out and just have the boldness and the confidence to pursue them. That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Bob, and thank you for listening to the Jody Mayberry Show. He's cracked it, so he's having a suk. It's sugar jay.