Alaska Road Trip: Off-Grid Introspection in Washington And Testing my New Osmo!

I drove about an hour, a little over an hour from Mount Vernon this morning in Washington. I decided to spend a few extra days here to get some work done before I cross the border since data is going to be an issue and I'll talk about that more later and I drove four miles out this this road. At least it was mostly paved but boy narrow, hugging the edge of a mountain with cliffs on one side, sometimes both sides. Yeah not for the faint of heart for sure but I kept saying, but the sign said that there were turnouts so I figured no matter what I'd always be able to find a way out but four miles into the road and I kept feeling well I'm committed, I'm committed there's got to be camping here. I pulled up here finally this was one of the best places, one of the biggest places on the side of the road that I thought I might be able to camp and this is really in a canyon along the creek you might be able to hear behind me. I'm four miles out there's not a lot of camping options. Anyway I'm trying to make this work and it's very very slanted and I saw this over here I'm like well I'll go explore that and I thought well maybe that's a spot if you can see. Hang on I'm gonna turn it around so you can see. Here's the road I was like that looks bare up there that might be a spot so I walked up and I'm like oh bummer it's a road so I thought I'd follow the road just a little further because that's what I do oh that looks interesting maybe that's a big enough pull out on this little four-wheel road that I can camp on and look what I found. Look at this look at this camp it's beautiful it's absolutely beautiful it's above the road it's off the off it's above the river it's off the road it's beautiful all right yeah check that out that's what you get for exploring this is how I find my spots just keep driving until I find something more I have to turn around and I was kind of getting to the point a couple times I'm like um maybe I should turn around maybe I should turn around but I'm like there's got to be something out here it's National Forest and lo and behold and it's uh well it's not that late it might be two but I mean I'm really far away it took me a long time to get here I'm far away from an internet connection I'm far away for everything from everything so I was pretty committed and I knew I wouldn't have internet but uh you know even if I couldn't find a place to stay for a few days I would have found a place just to spend the night and there was plenty of spots plenty of you know not so great options I could have just spent the night but I'm hoping to spend a few days here yay it's been carrying wood around with me since I think Arizona I think and I can't take it to Canada so I decided to have a fire tonight the phone of course is exploring non-stop but I thought I would try something different I'm smoking my tofu it's already pressed I pressed it for about four or five hours and for those of you who don't know tofu comes in water one of the ways to prepare it is to cut it in half and then wrap it in paper towels and I wrap it in unbleached paper towels because I don't want all the chemicals and bleachy stuff from regular paper towels leaching into it so I use unbleached recycled paper towels and uh and then you I set set it on my heavy cast iron pan on it for four hours to press all the water excess water out of it and then you can cook it with whatever you want and it you can marinate it in like sesame oil and orange juice and all kinds of good stuff but so I did a whole bunch today I did three packages I pressed I figured I would just bake it but I've got a fire going and some smoke and I thought it might be good to smoke it at least a couple we'll see how it turns out just get a smoky flavor and then maybe I'll bake it later so this is my camp awesome I love it huh bud you love it what's the matter I yelled at him because he went way deep in the woods you can't go deep in the woods this time of day no it's hunting time it's okay you're not in trouble I love you you're so shiny this is camp and it's been nice just kind of relaxing since I've got here I think I got here like four it was four because I was thinking about having a cup of coffee and I looked at the clock too late to have coffee at four um so yeah been a nice relaxing afternoon and early evening I actually even laid down for about an hour took a nap sort of kind of this is life without internet it's nice I'm gonna relax and enjoy my night yeah look at that tree look at that oh you're not you can't really tell how about if I put my hand on it look at this okay you still can't tell I don't think I can you still can't tell I don't think I can zoom on this look at this oh yeah you can tell okay oh my okay this thing is gonna give me a little bit of a learning curve oh there we go okay there we go I don't know what that does this tree is just crazy or what here can we do this okay that's cool I know I shoot a lot of footage sometimes I use it sometimes I don't anyway another waterfall I have hiked a mile from camp and I've passed three there is I'm just amazed at all the water here uh and running water there's just everywhere you go you hear running water from my camp I hear a river below me and a small creek next to me and this is a different one there's just water everywhere it's beautiful I guess this is really the rainforest I've heard people refer to this as the rainforest but I don't know I think rainforests of like Amazon I guess humid right hot and humid not cool and foggy and misty so beautiful this is where I get to walk today I'm excited to be I feel like I'm on an adventure it's nice being away from internet I think I say that every time I shoot a video but yeah this is uh unplugging is good it's reminding me of why I wanted to be out here this is good this is good Alaska's gonna be good one of the things I was so excited about going to Alaska was the fact that I'm not gonna have internet a lot remember I said in the video I think what I was kind of feeling blah and I said that life follows you wherever you go somebody told me recently oh my life must be good or how can you complain about being on a permanent vacation I am not on a permanent vacation like I said in another video a permanent vacation is sitting beach on the beach with a a book and a virgin mai tai right all the time it's not a permanent vacation I still have to adult I was just adulting last week taking care of a lot of stuff yeah no it's not a permanent vacation tough bud wanna go home? wanna go? home sweet home ah the sun is out I put the generator out because I wasn't getting much sun and I thought it might rain today can't remember what the weather said I thought it said rain for the next few days but that could mean just the drizzle that I had this morning yay sun all right this is home not too shabby huh hi bud wanna go? let's get a good drink of water good I'm sad to say goodbye I really am I love it here this is probably maybe top 10 favorite spots no internet it's really good to unplug when my world became so enmeshed in social media it became easy to believe not even believe but to see the anger and because I'm an empath I feel it I absorb it it becomes part of me it comes in my cells and I and that's part of the the struggle I've had with the whole uh YouTube thing and you know I did social media when I was a marketing consultant but it's very very different it wasn't personal it was business I didn't have YouTube uh you know I tried a a couple of small YouTube videos on my channel just because that's what you were supposed to do but I didn't put any effort into it but it was mostly face-to-face marketing and it's very different when you do something personal on social media you're much more open to opinions and unsolicited advice and attacks and the anger and the vitriol and especially when you dare to have an opinion so coming out here again it kind of reminds me of my 30 days on the John Muir Trail just really gives perspective helps me step back from a lot of the a lot of what's going on in the world find peace serenity truth I wish we could heal thinking about the video that posted the night I got out here that I haven't seen the comments for I went to uh march the uh march for our lives and I know that the comments about that weight and I tried to be very diplomatic about that I tried to not force my you know what I tried to be very diplomatic about it and to express my opinion in a respectful and kind way and I I know already that there's going to be some ugliness and some hatred and so I was laying in bed this morning thinking about that I don't know when did having an opinion having a differing opinion become so awful why can't we just allow other people to have their opinions without anger and judgment and instead just have civil conversations about the things that matter these are answers to questions that are too big for me for little old me I try to make maybe a tiny difference with my channel and that's why I don't shy away from difficult subjects I would like to show that labels aren't always true of course people see what they want to see I try to show that I'm a person behind the labels and that my opinions aren't always what you would expect them to be sometimes my opinions contradict themselves and each other that's human nature sometimes they're extremely complex issues and on one level it might seem one way and you go another level and it might seem another way I try to show that I'm open to change I'm open to others ideas I'm open even to changing my mind when I applied for the scholarship at Berkeley the leadership alumni scholarship it was a leadership scholarship and you know very young and naive and not very prepared I went into the interview with four or five a panel of four or five Cal alumni and they asked me what makes you a leader and it like the question just totally like blindsided me like uh you know I've been president of the honor society been involved in in other other leadership you know probably management and jobs or supervisory roles and jobs and I always kind of seem to be a natural leader but I guess I never really thought of myself as a leader and the the thing that that came to mind was that I think I'm a leader because I don't intend to lead I just live my life trying to do good in this world while I'm here trying to help people trying to be the best person I can be and I think in doing that I lead by example and I think I've really grasped that over the last couple of decades in my public life my public image my public persona maybe not so much in the last couple decades maybe just in the last couple of years since I've really been sharing more of my personal journey more of my personal stuff my hope is that I can lead by example sometimes I stumble sometimes I fall sometimes I stick my foot in my mouth sometimes I insult people unintentionally it's always unintentionally I'm still working through my own prejudices my own ideas my own thoughts my own brainwashing if you will of what we've heard and seen in our society and what I've been raised with and those are the things that I try to point out some people see that most people see that some people see that as a sign of weakness and use it against me maybe my videos can make one tiny change help bridge the divide that's between us in some small way so that we can reach across the table look each other in the eye shake hands and say okay we can agree to disagree now where do we go from here I look forward to more of this in Alaska so hey bud look at that shot look at that I think I'm gonna trying to get the sign not bad double what did I get I got a double soy latte it's pretty good it's been nice doing the local coffee shops in Washington didn't do it so much in Oregon I don't know why I should have I tried a couple times traffic anyway all right mountain man espresso and deli I can't remember what town I'm in Mount Baker Glacier I'm near Glacier it's really pretty we're springing