Patricia Upton is truly the star of the show in Episode 250

Most of our podcasts are full of stories, but not many cover the globe from end to end. Patricia Upton and her husband, the late Loren Upton, have completed expeditions that most of us only dream about. Patricia is still adventuring. Listen closely, the trips have twists and turns in countries many of us have never heard of. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

7:02 – I don’t remember being afraid of spiders until we were in Okinawa 

15:42 – I was in Panama for 17 years. I got off the plane down there and said, okay, eternal summer, this is where I need to be.             

25:06 – That’s when the spark for me to go full-time with the expedition with Loren

31:14 – Loren was away when he got word that Larry had been shot and killed.

41:45 – He wanted a romantic high adventure in the classical sense of an expedition 

52:30 – Nowadays, you can’t get anywhere near the plaque that says you’re at the furthest road south on the African continent

1:00:33 – that night, near the Nile, was the only night of the entire trip that we were faced with the reality that we got out butts someplace that could be pretty bad

1:17:14 – we worked because we were desperately out of money

Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:05.300] - 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.560] - 

Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two, Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis. Tread victoriously.

[00:01:13.030] - 

Have you seen 4Low magazine yet? 4low magazine is a high-quality, well-written, four-wheel drive-focused magazine for the enthusiast market. If you still love the idea of a printed magazine, something to save and read at any time, 4Low is the magazine for you. 4Low cannot be found in stores, but you can have it delivered to your home or place of business. Visit 4Lowmagazine.com to order your subscription today.

[00:01:40.320] - Big Rich Klein

My guest this week has always been an adventurous soul, first with her family following her dad's military career in Okinawa and then to Panama, then joining her future husband, Loren, on his roads end to roads end trip, and now preparing for the 2025 Rebelle Rally. This guest would be Patricia Upton. Good morning, Patricia Upton. So glad to have you on here. It's been a while since we've had a chance to talk. I don't know if you remember, but my wife and I came down and visited you and Loren in A-Z about possibly doing some ghost writing for you for the book. And we got to spend quite a few hours with you guys talking, and it's good to get back in touch with you.

[00:02:30.140] - Patricia Upton

Yes, it's good to talk with you, Rich.

[00:02:32.320] - Big Rich Klein

Let's jump right into this crazy story of yours. We'll touch on Lauren, too, but I want this story to be about Patricia. Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:46.720] - Patricia Upton

I was born in New Jersey, Dover, New Jersey, in 1953. It was only by my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, insisting that my mother come home to New Jersey to have the baby because mom was out in Pendleton, California. Dad had been shipped off to... Well, he was in route to Korea, but things changed and they got way late in Japan. He was with the Marine Corps. My grandmother said, No, you're not going to stay out there and have the baby by yourself. You're coming back. So she flew out there. I don't know how pregnant mom was with me, but everything was closed up in Pendleton, and mom went back to New Jersey, and that's where I ended up being born. So I've always said I was before I was born.

[00:03:31.560] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. How long were you in New Jersey? The duration of the war?

[00:03:39.840] - Patricia Upton

No, I think... I'm trying to remember from stories. I believe I was nine months old, so maybe a year, so maybe a year and a half. We lived with my grandparents in New Jersey. Dad came back from Japan, and that was when I met my father. I mean, no recollection, of course. But yeah, I was a year old when I met my dad, and then he was stationed on the East Coast in Let me think. It was Quantico. There we go, Virginia. I got to think of the Marine Corps basis. We lived there for a few years, and then he was shipped back to Japan. Mom was pregnant with my sister, so she went back to New Jersey, and that's where my sister was born. When dad came back from that tour of duty, we were transferred to North Carolina, Camp Lejeune. Okay. And live there.

[00:04:47.550] - Big Rich Klein

Is that the time that you more recollect?

[00:04:52.620] - Patricia Upton

Yeah, I can remember living in... Well, Tarala Terrace was the… We lived in Tarala Terrace, which is a base housing, and then we moved to another base housing called Cape Heart Housing. We lived there for four years, give or take, maybe three. I have to go by how old everybody was because I don't remember date, their years. Then dad was transferred to Okinawa, and this was now during the Vietnam War. He worked with Marine Corps or naval intelligence. We were sent to Okinawa. He was the only Marine on the island with his family. All the other Marines were in route to and from either the theater or back to the US. We were the only Marine Corps family on the island. We lived off base, and our house became the refuge for some of these young Marine Corps guys to get away from the base and get more of a home environment. I can remember many a weekend when there'd be 15 or 20 young Marines flaked out in the yard, in the living room, everywhere, just to get into a home setting instead of in barracks.

[00:06:15.640] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Shelle spent time in Okinawa, too. She was only four or five years old, but her dad was in the Air Force and was stationed there or living there and then going into Vietnam and back out and stuff. He was in Da Nang for most of it. But that was their thing, too, off base. She said that one time she came out to open up the door to go to school, and there was a spider web and a big, big spider over the door opening.

[00:06:54.620] - Patricia Upton

Oh, my God, you just made my skin crawl.

[00:06:59.920] - Big Rich Klein

Not a fan of spiders, huh?

[00:07:02.160] - Patricia Upton

I really don't remember being afraid of spiders until we were in Okinawa. And all of a sudden they had these big, ugly spiders that would appear just overnight. I go into the bathroom, and of course, everything's tiled. The house was built by Okinawa, and so the bathrooms were all tile. I mean, everything. The whole tub shower was all little tiles. I remember going in and flicking on the light to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and there was this huge spider up in the corner. It was at least three feet up in the corner of the bathroom. I had to go wake my dad up because I wouldn't go to the bathroom until he killed the spider. Yeah, make my scale call. That's one that I have never, ever liked.

[00:07:50.250] - Big Rich Klein

You're in Okinawa. How long were you there, approximately?

[00:07:54.880] - Patricia Upton

We were there four years. Four years? Wow. I did four Fifth, sixth, and seventh grade. I think we got there at the beginning of my fourth grade year, and we left the summer after my seventh grade. That had to be '62 to '66, give or take. All right.

[00:08:17.060] - Big Rich Klein

Shelle was there later than that. Then what was school like for you? Military, living off base, but I would imagine you were still going to the base for school?

[00:08:32.550] - Patricia Upton

Right. Yes. We lived just off base. The base was literally 100 yards from us, the post, the guard post, to get onto Machinado, the base at Machinado, which was an army base. But we lived off base. We lived... I mean, days were spent going down to the coral reefs and wandering around on the coral reefs during low tide or walking on the sea wall or wandering through the sugarcane fields. That was the fun part. I don't know how much kids do outdoors nowadays compared to what we did, but we were free range. We had to whistle when it was time to come home because we didn't have streetlights. The roads were dirt, playing marbles in the street, ride and bike. You learn to ride a bike real well because everything was coral, and you knew if you fell, you were going to get lacerated. It character in some respects.

[00:09:32.460] - Big Rich Klein

Right. But even at the young age, you were an explorer?

[00:09:36.440] - Patricia Upton

Oh, yeah. What was in the house? At that time, television was provided military, and it didn't come on the four o'clock in the afternoon. You didn't sit around when you were in school and watch TV. There was nothing to watch. So, yeah, you were gone. If it was a rainy day, mom had packed my sister and I up, and we'd go down to downtown Naha and do what she called Black Market Alley, which was just covered little shops and tiny little holes in the wall. But it was all under various little roofs. So one roof overlapped another roof. So you could spend all day in there, not get wet. She would just go down there. She'd sewed a lot, so she'd go down and buy material and that thing. We just tagged along. And I can just remember the bright colors and fabrics and tops, pants, you name it. It was all sold there.

[00:10:29.450] - Big Rich Klein

Right. One of the things that Shelle said that she really liked about Okinawa that she can remember was the access to lobster.

[00:10:43.170] - Patricia Upton

I don't ever remember lobster. I don't remember lobster. I remember swimming in the tidal pools and some of the smaller tidal pools, that thing. But I don't ever remember I wasn't much of a seafood person back when I was a kid that I can remember. So I don't remember that.

[00:11:07.570] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, she said that they got back from Okinawa, they were down in LA somewhere, and They went to a restaurant with family, and she wanted to order lobster because that's what she always got to eat on the island. And instead of being a dollar or whatever, it was $10 or $15 for lobster here, and she couldn't understand why she couldn't have lobster.

[00:11:36.500] - Patricia Upton

Yes.

[00:11:38.550] - Big Rich Klein

So then as you went through school, what studies did you... I would imagine you were pretty studious, having met- No, I wasn't.

[00:11:50.270] - Patricia Upton

I hated school. You weren't? I really didn't like school. It was a waste of time. I didn't want to be there until... I can remember sixth grade was my first year that I can actually remembered geography, and I thought, Oh, finally, a subject I can latch onto. I just soaked that in. I thought that was the greatest thing in the world was geography, learning about countries and GMPs and culture and customs and drawing maps and plotting the capitals and the main roads and sea ports and that thing. If I hadn't gotten good grades in geography, it probably would have wiped me out. But yeah, I was... Geography was my favorite.

[00:12:31.430] - Big Rich Klein

After Okinawa, did your dad stay in the service? Did he come?

[00:12:36.240] - Patricia Upton

He did. For another few years, he was transferred to headquarters Marine Corps. We lived in Woodbridge, Virginia. I'm trying to remember if it was a year to... Maybe it was just last year, I don't remember. Again, I have to really start thinking on some of this, but he worked headquarters Marine Corps for at least a year, maybe two. Then he retired after 21 years in the Marine Corps and went to work for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Okay. And went to, quote, unquote, school somewhere in Maryland, I believe, and learned Spanish. I believe he... I don't know if he learned at that time. I think it was just the Spanish he learned at that time. He came home one day in early I don't know, '69, late '68, possibly, probably late '68, and said, We got orders. We're being transferred to the Philippines. We thought, Oh, jeez, we just came back from that part of the world. Now, not that it was the same as Nala, because obviously it wasn't, but it was in the same area. It just, Okay, fine. Well, at least we're on the move. Let's go. Well, about two weeks later, he came home and said, Plans changed.

[00:13:56.850] - Patricia Upton

We're going to Panama. We said, Oh, yeah.

[00:13:59.790] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, nice.

[00:14:01.180] - Patricia Upton

Okay. Yeah, we love that. We went down there. I got there in '69, just before the moon landing. I remember we watched it on a little portable black and white TV, about a nine-inch screen. I did my last two years of high school down there in the Canal zone. We lived in the Canal zone. He worked on a Navy base. We lived on a base, and he worked on the Navy base. I did last two years high school, and then two years of community college down there.

[00:14:36.520] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Courses of study in your community college? Just general, or did you have a- Just general.

[00:14:43.640] - Patricia Upton

I was leaning towards secretarial type stuff. I had worked for... I had been a Girl Scout since the age of seven, and I had worked at the Girl Scout office in the Canal zone, summer jobs, and I liked it, and I thought, Oh, this is fun. So I was leaning in that direction, was secretarial bookkeeping, that thing.

[00:15:09.070] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, a desk job. Unfortunately, that was like That was the standard.

[00:15:18.420] - Patricia Upton

Yeah.

[00:15:18.680] - Big Rich Klein

That was what was expected, right.

[00:15:21.660] - Patricia Upton

Right.

[00:15:22.810] - Big Rich Klein

So then you're in Panama for a couple of years, or it sounds like at least four years. And then Where was the next landing point?

[00:15:35.590] - Patricia Upton

Well, actually, I lived in Panama. We got down there in '69. I did not leave till '80.

[00:15:41.620] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:15:42.390] - Patricia Upton

Fix. Yeah. I was down there for about 17 years, I think. I got off the plane down there and I said, Okay, eternal summer. This is where I need to be. You can be outside year round. Yeah, I fell in love with the country. I fell in love with... There's a There's a certain mentality that would be some people, not very few, but there are some that once they were in the canal zone, they didn't want to venture out. Now, the canal zone at that time was 10 miles wide, 5 miles either side of the canal and about 50 miles long from the Atlantic to the Pacific. That's a small piece of property, I'm sorry, especially since it's a big, watery ditch through the middle of it, a couple of big lakes. The country was phenomenal. I enjoyed the country. I did get married in '73, my first husband, and he was very active with a Boy Scout Explorer Post that was sponsored by the Air Force Tropical Survival School. That's where I met him, actually, was through a class that their Boy Scout troop gave, a survival class. I was a senior in high school at the time, so there's a group of seniors and then women Girl Scout leaders that were invited to take this one week course put on by the Air Force Tropical Survival School with the help of this Boy Scout post.

[00:17:06.700] - Patricia Upton

That's where I met them, was through that.

[00:17:08.990] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, interesting. You were You were down there. Of course, you probably didn't get married in '73, but you met him?

[00:17:23.270] - Patricia Upton

Yeah. Well, no, I met him in actually '71. We got married in '73. Oh, '71. Yeah, early. Which, In the long run, I'm not a big fan of looking back. It's one of those things that our parents didn't know anything with that time, but yeah, they did. But we were together till '80. I got a, I can't think, '83, '84. We had a daughter. He was outdoorsy. We did four-wheel drive trips. We were members of the off-road, what they called the Panama Mudchuggers. We did a four-wheel drive club. We did lots of four-wheel drive trips into Panama, into the backcountry. Because everything off the main road, the Pan-American Highway that came down from Costa Rica or the one that went across the Istmus, everything else was basically off-road. There was a whole country in there that you could explore. We did a lot of off-roading. Short little trip down to the Darien, In '75, I think. A little bit early '75, February '75, where you couldn't get too far. Yeah, early '75. But yeah, I worked. By I was working for the Girl Scouts full-time. I was their main secretary receptionist and enjoyed it because it was a desk job, but it wasn't necessarily you weren't tied to a desk.

[00:18:58.000] - Patricia Upton

I mean, it was a Jack-of-all-trades job, which is what I need to be doing, something that doesn't keep me sitting for eight hours a day.

[00:19:05.860] - Big Rich Klein

Right. You have that Bedouin nature.

[00:19:11.200] - Patricia Upton

Yeah, there's something in my feet that just got to keep moving. Even in the office, it was... I mean, there would be days that might be really bad, and you might be at the desk most of the day typing up forms or flyers. At that time, it was with mimeographs. This was before computers. But it was It was challenging, and it was interesting, and there was plenty to keep me busy. So I enjoyed the work. And I've always said, If you don't enjoy the job, quit. Correct. Life's too small to spend that many hours a day doing something you don't like.

[00:19:43.670] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I'm the same way with that. Up until I became an off-road event promoter, I never worked a job or even had my own business that lasted more than five years. I'd get bored or didn't like the situation I was in, and I'd walk and go find something else to do completely different.

[00:20:07.710] - Patricia Upton

Eventually, with the Girl Scouts, I ended up being... The office was paired down to just myself and a part-time bookkeeper I ended up filling in for what we call the field director that organized the program that went strictly to the girls. I worked with a lot of and worked with them in leadership training, first aid training. I did a lot of that. Then I did camp directing. I directed day camps. I directed a camps where I had to devise the program, hire the staff, get the supplies, the whole nine yards. So it was good. I enjoyed it because it really It really filled me out a lot of things and kept me very well occupied.

[00:21:04.990] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay. Yeah, I've not been to Panama. I've been to Costa Rica on two occasions where we spent a total of about a month. But I understand that the two countries, tropicaly and vegetation-wise and everything, are very similar. Like you said, you get off the Trans-American Highway. And there's not... In Costa Rica, if you're in the big cities, you're on pavement or the main roads from city to city. But the neighborhoods, everything else are dirt roads. And then we thought we were on the Trans-American Highway. We weren't. And I thought, man, this is an awfully rough road for people to go from one country to the next. And we were back out in the jungles somewhere. Easy to find our way back out, of course, but it was the torrential rain down there was incredible. Yeah. Couldn't believe how much it rained. Yeah.

[00:22:12.610] - Patricia Upton

If you're there during rainy season, not only does it rain? And you can almost set your clock by rain. I mean, it would, one o'clock in the afternoon, it might start raining, and it will absolutely pour. The Panamanians call their emergency flashers, flashy flashies. So You put your flashy flashies on and your windshow wipes on as fast as they'll go, and you still can't see anything. And just everyone pulls off the road until it lets up in another 30 minutes, and it'll finally ease up, and you can see where you're going, and you move on. But yeah, it rains, I mean, deafening downpours.

[00:22:50.830] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Yeah. What I was surprised with is we were there the first time in the rainy season, and then we We left for three weeks. We came back for another 2-3 weeks, and they said, Oh, you're in the dry season now. And I mean, what was where all the rivers were really overflowing and it just rained every day for at least part of the day. To all of a sudden, for the three weeks we were down there, there was no rain, and it was almost parched. And I was like, I can't believe that just that short period of time, there It was no shoulder season. It was on or off.

[00:23:32.980] - Patricia Upton

Right, exactly. I once talked to a friend of mine that worked... He was a hydrologist that worked for the Canal Zone government. I said, Well, how do you determine when dry season starts, and he got this real thoughtful look on his face, and he contemplated it, and he looked at me, he says, Well, two weeks after the last rain. I said, Okay. That's when they officially say it's dry season. Yeah, in the canals on, the ground would dry up because you don't really water much because you know it's all going to come back and the water is all what goes to the canal anyway. Sometimes you have to be careful about your water. The ground will dry up to the point where your yard is... I mean, you can see big cracks in the ground because of all the fact that it has dried up so much. But it's cooler. It's usually a few It's a few degrees cooler during dry season. There's usually a little bit more of a breeze that blows off the water, which is where the coolness comes from. When I say a few degrees, it may get down into the lower '90s instead of the higher '90s.

[00:24:45.020] - Patricia Upton

But still, it's more refreshing than the rainy season, where it's 99% humidity and 99 degrees.

[00:24:56.070] - Big Rich Klein

You're spending your life there You're still a US citizen? Oh, yeah. Okay, because you were in the US zone, the Canal zone.

[00:25:06.700] - Patricia Upton

Right. I lived in the Canal zone, and then I worked in the Canal zone. Of course, then with the treaty, everything switched, and bits and pieces were gradually given back to Panama. Then in '86, the Girl Scouts from New York came down, the head office came down and said that due to the treaties, that they had to close our office and move it to a different location and go to an all-volunteer office staff. I thought, Well, I need to work at this point. Not with my husband. I need to have housing and that stuff and a job. That's what was the spark for me to go full-time with the expedition with Lauren. Before that, I was only going on a part-time basis as a photographer. But when they basically said, If you're a volunteer, fine. I said, Well, I need an income. Sorry. They said, Okay. And I just packed it up in mid '86s and said, See you.

[00:26:19.000] - Big Rich Klein

So you were divorced, I would imagine, at that point. Yes. You were doing photography for Lauren Lauren, how did you meet Lauren to where you started doing the photography for his trip?

[00:26:39.140] - Patricia Upton

A funny story. My ex-husband introduced us.

[00:26:44.350] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:26:44.930] - Patricia Upton

Lauren was down there in... When Lauren first came down to Panama in late '74, in driving a Ford F-250 pickup truck, I mean, dual rear wheels, A huge, raised, massive-looking thing, huge front bumper, and California license plates, the first thing that crosses your mind when you see something like that in Panama or the Canal zone is this guy thinks he's driving to South America. What does he think he's doing? He's crazy. And so, I don't know, somewhere along the line, my husband saw him and stopped him and talked to him and said, Well, come on home for dinner. So my ex-husband brought him home for dinner, and we got the story. And yeah, he thought he didn't realize that there was no road through as most people didn't in those days. We said, Well, we can help you out here because we know people through our jungle survival connections and the Boy Scouts that have I don't know, access to maps. At that time, you could get connections with the military and get first aid kits from them and that thing. We did what we could to get him information, maps, first aid kits, whatever supplies, water purification tablets, whatever we could come up with for him to send him on his way, which is basically what happened.

[00:28:13.300] - Patricia Upton

He left late '74, early '75, I forget, probably close to early '75 for his attempt to go through the burying Gap at that time.

[00:28:24.040] - Big Rich Klein

That was in the Ford?

[00:28:26.170] - Patricia Upton

That was in the Ford, right. That's He did not make it on that trip. That's correct. That's the one that, unfortunately, was the really heartbreaking one. A volunteer that was with him, he put out letters at the Balboa Yacht Club. Because at that time, people were backpacking through the Darian Gap. It didn't have the reputation as it has now. In fact, there was a British company that used to run hiking tours through there from Panama to Colombia. So he put out a flyer at the Valvoya Yacht Club, which is where all the backpackers and people trying to get through either by hiring on a boat or finding groups to backpack with, would put their notices. And he met up with a gentleman there, Larry. And Larry was a little older than Lorne. Lorne was, I think, 49 at the time. Larry was a few years older and had a prosthetic foot. I don't remember which one. He'd lost it in a, not a motorcycle accident, a lawnmower accident. Anyway, Larry was a medic. He was a medic in the army, former medic in the army. He acted as the expeditions medic and cook because he really couldn't go out on trail and work or anything like that, but he could do things around the camp.

[00:29:55.760] - Patricia Upton

Lauren, the Ford was just overloaded and he He had problems with it, and they were seven miles off a graveled road that was being pushed through by one of the US construction companies. He broke an entire axial housing, not just the axial shaft. He had hiked out to the construction camp to get parts and arrange for them because they all used boards down there. Then he was hiking back. When I say hiking, this was like a two-hour hike out to get to this road where he could sometimes get ride to the construction camp if he hit it just right and there was a vehicle going, otherwise he'd walk the road until he could get a ride. It was a day trip, basically, to go from camp to the construction camp. He'd be back and forth, arranging for supplies and then back in camp. He'd go out and search trail for a few days and come back in camp for a few days. Then he was back and forth out of camp, searching trail and back in camp. The natives that lived nearby would come into camp and spend time with Larry. Larry could speak Spanish, and they would bring him fruit and vegetables, and they'd get water for him because there was no water right in camp and had a really good rapport with the natives.

[00:31:14.400] - Patricia Upton

Lauren said, Okay, I'm leaving. I got to go. The park should be in in another few days. I'm headed back to the construction camp to see what's going on. So he was there when he got word that Larry had been shot and killed. No one knows exactly what happened. It was never really a solved thing to our knowledge, but he was found dead outside the Ford, and I don't know who found him. He was found dead outside the Ford on the passenger side. He had his Bible and his pipe makings and his pipe with him, and he had a small caliber wound behind his right ear. It looks like he was shot from the back and just rolled out onto the ground. Well, Lauren guesses, and he says, I saw nothing but sorrow in the native's eyes when he was back in the camp, and sorrow from these natives because they were truly friends of Larry's. The natives down there have notoriously old weapons, I should say, and they do not handle them with a great deal of care. Our guess is they were in there for the afternoon with Larry and said, We'll see you tomorrow.

[00:32:32.620] - Patricia Upton

Have a good night, and picked up their weapons, threw them over their shoulder, and walked out, and one discharged. That's our guess because nothing was stolen. At that point, the vehicle was totally left open. Nothing was taken from the vehicle. The only things that ended up being missing were things that the guardia had put on an inventory, and when Lauren got stuff back, those things were no longer there. So the only thing missing went missing under the guardia's eye, not under anyone else's.

[00:33:04.190] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:33:05.760] - Patricia Upton

So that was the end of that trip. That was just a heartbreaker for Lauren that someone had been shot and killed. Right.

[00:33:14.140] - Big Rich Klein

So he abandoned the adventure at that point?

[00:33:18.300] - Patricia Upton

Right. He got the truck out. It took him some while because there was a delay because of all the legalities of the killing and the stuff being locked up and getting the vehicle then repaired. The rains had started by the time it was ready for him to start moving the vehicle. He made a deal with the construction company. There was a big cat that was toeing a generator out of the area for the construction company because construction all halted during rainy season. He made a deal with the cat driver that if the cat would tow his Ford, he would tow the generator. And they just made this train and just went through seas of mud for, I don't know how many miles, till they finally got out to where there was a decent road that they could get traction on.

[00:34:12.110] - Big Rich Klein

Did Lauren drive all the way back to the States at that point, or did he ship the vehicle?

[00:34:16.650] - Patricia Upton

No, he drove it all the way back to the US. Okay.

[00:34:23.170] - Big Rich Klein

And then he decided to do the Jeep trip with a What was it? A '66?

[00:34:32.510] - Patricia Upton

No, there's two more in there. In '77, he came down with a CJ7, a brand new CJ7. I saw him briefly when he was there. I should say my husband, I saw him briefly when he was there in '77 or late '76. I think it was early '77. Basically, by then, he had He knew the connection. So he made his connections, did everything, got all his gear. Met a kid at the Balboa Yacht Club, a young Canadian by the name of John Blake, who said, Yeah, he'd love to go. They took off in the CJ7 in early '77, and they left the doors to the Jeep because it was a soft pop. They left the doors to the Jeep with my husband and I to store, along with heavy sleeping bags heavy clothes that they weren't going to need through the dairy and that thing. I didn't hear a word until months later when John Blake showed up and said, We made it through. I need to pick up the stuff. So he took the stuff and left. That was actually the last connection I had with Lauren, even though that was not a direct connection.

[00:35:50.800] - Patricia Upton

That would have been sometime in April, maybe of '77. I think I read an article. I No, I don't think so. That was the last I'd heard of them. But anyway, that particular trip I later found out. Lauren, they were high in the Indian Mountains of Ecuador, and they made it through the Daring Gap. But he had done about 8-10 miles on top of dugouts through the swampss because the rains were coming. And Lorne had wanted an all land crossing. He was willing to cross rivers but not travel up or down them. While the rains were coming, he had to get out. So he traveled about 8-10 miles up the river to get to dry land. That point became moot several weeks later when in the Indian Mountains, the road turned and Lauren didn't, and the whole vehicle went over a 300-foot embankment. So that put an end to that trip. That was a total loss. Everyone survived, no problems whatsoever, but that was the end of the trip. And I didn't hear about that until years later. Then he was back down in '79, never heard from him, never saw him. I don't know whether I was living on the Atlantic side at that time or whether I was in the States I lead, because it would have been Christmas, January when he was down there.

[00:37:13.740] - Patricia Upton

That's usually when we would take our stateside leave. So I don't know for sure where I was in '79 when he came through. So never heard from him in '79. And that one was a total loss. He was driving a brand new CJ5. And this one was done. He was in there about two weeks after Mark Smith's group got out. Mark Smith came up from the south and was going through. Lauren was coming down from North America and going through. Mark Smith was already out by the time Lauren got there. He was in the newly created Los Gatios Park in Columbia when a park official came up to him and said that he needed permission. Well, Lawrence is really good at taking a man for his word. If a man says he needs permission, Lauren says, Okay, fine. I'll go get permission. What do I have to do? So the guy told him, Well, Lauren spent 11 days. The expedition was called to a halt. Men were on the payroll staying with the vehicle while he went out all the way to Bogotá to get this permission from their park office and get back. Then he couldn't find the park official to show him the letter.

[00:38:29.670] - Patricia Upton

Again, the rains were beginning to threaten, so he wanted to get on a move. So he got back to the Jeep, packed everything up. They started moving high on their winching up a pretty good-size hill, and this park official comes running up and says, No, no, no, no, you can't go. You can't go. Lauren says, I've got the permission right here. Just give me a few minutes to get to the top of the hill. Lauren gets the permission out and shows it to him, and the park official is emphatically refusing to look at the paperwork. He says, No, no, no good. No permission. Well, then Lauren realized all the guy wanted to with was payoff. Well, if you'd asked for a payoff from the beginning, Lauren probably would have worked something out, but the guy said no permission. Anyway, long story short, Lauren said, It's going to take more than you and your gun to stop me. Wrong choice of words. A man came back the next day with more men and more guns. That vehicle- Was taken? Yeah, that vehicle was left to the jungles. The hood of it, I have a picture of the hood that was This would have been in '79 is when this was abandoned.

[00:39:32.660] - Patricia Upton

I have a picture of the hood that was taken in '86, I believe, maybe '87, by a motorcycle as Helga Petterson that was going through the Darian Gap. The hood was in a village of via how in Columbia. He took a picture of the hood and gave it to me. So whatever happened to the rest of it, who knows? But I'm sure it was just cannibalized for bits and pieces in parts because nobody could drive it. There was nowhere to go with it. So that was the end of the '79 one. So it wasn't until '84 when he started the fourth trip, and that was in the CJ5, the 1966 CJ5. And that's when I found out he was back. A mutual friend said, Oh, that guy was gone to the Darian Gap years ago, was back. Well, I hadn't seen or heard from him since '77, and it's now '84. And so I looked him up and he said, Yeah, I'm back doing it again. I said, Well, and then I helped him out writing letters, trying to get permission to go through this National Park. And as I worked with him, I thought, I really like to go as a photographer.

[00:40:44.790] - Patricia Upton

So I arranged for someone to take over my job for 30 days at the Growth Scout office. I had just arranged for the bookkeeper to come on full-time. And January, February, March are pretty slow times as far as anything we're doing big with the Girl Scouts. Everything is just troop level, not council level. I said, I can arrange for 30 days and go as photographer. His nephew had flown down from the States. So there was his nephew Lawrence and myself, and then Ed Culberson on his motorcycle came down from the States and signed on to go and split costs of the guides and the food for those 30 days. Well, '85, actually, is when we left in February '85 to begin that crossing.

[00:41:41.390] - Big Rich Klein

By then, it was all grown back over again, correct?

[00:41:45.470] - Patricia Upton

Oh, yeah. The jungle... Now, we're not cutting down big trees. First of all, Lauren... Now, I got to tell my dog to be quiet. When Mark Smith went through, he had chainsaws. And hired 20 some odd natives. When Lauren followed him through there, he says, In the freaking highway when you got down there. I mean, it was 10 feet wide and just leveled. When you start cutting the bigger trees, then it's a little bit more of a work issue. Well, Lauren was only going down there with axes and machetes. He was strictly, he wanted it as a romantic high adventure in the classical sense of an expedition. He hired natives to work with axes and machetes. So nothing really big was cut. And it's once you start cutting the bigger trees that allow that sunlight to get to the jungle floor, do you have more undergrowth popping up? And so It was pretty well overgrown by '84, '85 when we got down there. Vines, small trees, leaves, exposed roots. These were all much more of a problem than... Because you could usually work your way around a tree of any size.

[00:43:05.480] - Big Rich Klein

Navigation, was it because he already knew the area, but it's really hard when you're in a jungle to truly navigate by sight, at least heading in distance. I mean, because your distance may be only 20 feet. It's not existing. How did they navigate?

[00:43:34.480] - Patricia Upton

He knew he wanted to stay on land. That was the overriding goal to do this, was to remain on land through the Daring Gap. Cross rivers, but don't travel up or down them. So major towns of any size, well, in all the villages of any size, are on the main rivers. When you ask a native, how do I get from Pinocona to Boca de Coupe? They tell you, well, you get on a boat, you go up the Twitter River and you get to Boca de Coupe. We said, no, that's not what we want to do. We have to go buy land. Well, then they scratch their head and look at you. Obviously, there's a land route. They just don't use it. We were very fortunate. 84 was a little bit more... 85, the first season in there was a little more trying because we were just hiring local people as we went and not getting the best. We had a few good guys working for us, but on a whole, not really, really the greatest. The next season in In '86, we had found Margarita, who had worked for Lauren on both previous expeditions. Margarita was our chief guide, and he knew what Lauren needed as far as getting through the Daring Gap.

[00:44:43.170] - Patricia Upton

If it wasn't for Margarito, we'd still be down there wondering around in circles. He's the one that could find a land route. He could read the land. He was from the Darien. He could speak... Well, he only spoke Spanish anyway. We couldn't really converse with him on a conversational level, but he knew what was needed as far as trail-wise to get the Jeep through. He got a little confused sometimes as to how steep a side hill the Jeep could do. A couple of times we had a reroute when we come across this place He says, Okay, we're going to go up here. Well, that's too great an incline there for us to do. We can't do that side hill. We have to find a way around that. We'd work away, send men out and find a way and get around it. So navigation It was strictly by our guides. Sending Margarito out, he'd be out and head with a machete blazing the trail, and then we had cutters behind him clearing the trail, and then the Jeep would follow that.

[00:45:44.920] - Big Rich Klein

And then what about navigation for outside of the Darien? Did you just follow existing roads, or was there open traversing? We did.

[00:45:59.290] - Patricia Upton

We stayed on the Pan-American. Yeah, we stayed on the Pan-American all the way down through South America. Then as we got to Punto Reynas, which everyone thinks is the end of the road. Well, At that time when we were down there, which was 87, we talked to people in the village or in the town, and we said, Look, we want to drive as far south as we can. We're not out to blaze a trail. We just want to drive on a gravel road, whatever you got that still is considered a road as far south as we can go. They said, Oh, yeah, great. No, the Pope had been there, I don't know, several months before and had held a ceremony at a Boy Scout camp that was south of Punta Arenas. They gave us directions, and sure enough, we found this road that went down past Punta Arenas. I don't remember. I think it was 38 miles further south than Punta Arenas. We ended up right on the the Beagle channel. No, straight to Magellan. Wrong place, straight to Magellan. That was as far as we could drive. We considered that the end of the road because it was from roads End to roads End was the goal all on land, and we drove as far as we could.

[00:47:17.250] - Patricia Upton

Well, at that point, we also found out we had free transportation across the Atlantic. I had gone to shipping companies in Lima and then in Santiago. One of them in Santiago They said, Yeah. They said, Call us in a couple of weeks. I said, Okay. After we had gone to the far south as we could, below Ponterenas, got back to town that night and called the office the next morning. They said, Yes, we've got a ship that will take you from a port here in Chile, Tijuana, to Cape Town, South Africa. It's not coming in for a couple of months, but it'll be free passage for the Jeep and the two of you. Why? You can't beat that. So we thought, okay. No, at that time, we had done some price checking. And between shipping the Jeep and us flying and being without the house for 30 days, it was going to be in excess of $6,000. And that was a really big chunk of our money at that point. So that savings was... Lauren was afraid he was going to get to South Africa and have to store the Jeep and then go back to work for a year to finish because we'd be out of money.

[00:48:30.860] - Patricia Upton

But finding that we had the free passage, he said, Well, let's go ahead and go as far south on the island that Tierra Del Fuego that we can go, because most people consider Ushuaia the end of the Pan-American Highway, which it is that you count taking the ferry boat across the Straits of Magellan. We said, okay, so we took the ferry boat across the Straits of Magellan, went down to Ushuaia, talked there, and we said, look, is there a road further south than Ushuaia. They said, well, yeah, if you go out of town and do this and do that, it goes south and then goes east quite a way. So we ended up, I don't know, a few miles south and I don't know how many miles east of Ushuaia, right on the Beagle channel. That was the end of the whole North-South American trip.

[00:49:19.580] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome. At that point, you had decided not to go back to Panama and the Girl Scouts?

[00:49:29.940] - Patricia Upton

Right. My job was gone in '86. When I had the opportunity to... In fact, Lauren was back in this... The Jeep was left in the jungle for that particular rainy season. We had broken axel shafts. Yeah, both of them were broken, I believe. He had left the Jeep in the Darianne, and we had gone out. I went back to my job in March, and then in June, they said, No, we're going to phase the job out. You got a month left. I said, Okay, so I finished the month out and called Lauren. I said, I can go full-time, because at that point, I was not going to go full-time because I still had a job. But once I found my job was phased out, he said, Sure, why not? That's when I went full-time with You said you had a daughter? Right. My daughter, Carrie.

[00:50:21.340] - Big Rich Klein

She didn't make the trip with you?

[00:50:25.250] - Patricia Upton

No, she was quite young, and she was very It was one of those things when I was going to leave Panama, I thought, do I want to just move her to the States and uproot her? And I thought, no, she's really... Her dad's very good. Her dad's got good daycare for her. She's in school with people she knows. And I thought, no, I cannot pull her out of her known environment. And fortunately, she adapted quite well. She's as blonde haired and blue-eyed as they come and speak Spanish like a true Panamanian. She has fortunately gotten the travel bug from me. She has just been, I don't know how many places. Right now, she's been... The last several years, her home base is between a place in Canada where her husband lives, and then she goes because she hasn't been able to get her paperwork to work in Canada yet. She goes back to Valdes, Alaska, and works in Valdes. Then he flies over and they ski because that's what they seem to live for is the winter sports. She's been to Japan, several countries, South America, Central America, several in Europe. Not Africa yet. Yeah, that's about all.

[00:51:50.960] - Patricia Upton

That's pretty good. I can't name all the countries without really thinking. But yeah, she works to travel. That's her whole goal is just to work so that she can have money to go traveling. And Rory is about the same.

[00:52:04.700] - Big Rich Klein

Then you guys find yourself in Cape Town, and you're working full-time for Lauren, You're the photographer, ride-along. Now that you're in Africa, there's still from Cape Town, you can go south, correct?

[00:52:30.880] - Patricia Upton

Right, yes. The furthest road south in Africa is located at what they call Cape Agales, further south than Cape Town. Now, I've seen pictures taken over the last several years of friends that have gone there. Of course, you can't get to the plaque like we could. We parked right next to the plaque, back the Jeep up there. The waves are crashing on the rocks just behind the Jeep, and that's the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic are crashing against each other at that point. Nowadays, you can't get anywhere near to the plaque that says you're at the furthest road south on the African continent. But yeah, we got right there, and that's what we considered the beginning of the trip through Africa.

[00:53:17.260] - Big Rich Klein

Then you took a couple of more years to make the next trip, make it all the way up to Norway, correct?

[00:53:25.350] - Patricia Upton

Yeah. Africa alone was about a year. We spent about six months in South Africa seeing what we could see there, all on a pretty tight budget, and over into what was called Southwest Africa at that time, which is now called Namibia. It's been about six months sightseeing around those two countries, and then started north through Africa, and it was about six months through the rest of Africa. Having been in South Africa at that time because of the government, we would be denied entry into Kenya and Tanzania. We actually talked to, I think it was the Kenyan embassy in Zambia, and he says, It's all political. He says, He has no control over it. He says, But if you show up at a border with a passport that is newer than six months, they'll want to see your old passport. Because that was the thing, is you just got a new passport that didn't have any indication of where you'd ever been. And he says, No, if you have a passport that's newer than six months old, they're going to want to see your old passport. Both of those countries were out, so we were relegated to going through Zambia at that time.

[00:54:43.280] - Patricia Upton

Botswana and Zambia had relations with South Africa, so they were all easy enough to travel through. Then once we left Zambia, we crossed into Zair, and Zair was the first country that we had definite road problems, finding roads. Navigation came in. We had to buy the newest maps before we left South Africa that showed what roads no longer existed. We had talked with a couple in Johannesburg that had gone overland through Africa about a year before us. That was great because you got to South Africa and you started asking questions about, Oh, do you know anyone that's gone through Africa? Overland. And it's like, Oh, no, no, you'll be shot, you'll be killed, you'll be this, you'll be that, you'll be named, you'll be eaten, whatever. We said, Well, have you done it? Well, no. Do you know someone that did it? Well, no. Well, where's your information from? Well, I know somebody who knew somebody who knows somebody. Whatever. We need to get a little bit better information than that. And this was before internet. So it wasn't like you could go online and check a forum or something and find out on your Facebook and find out who's done what and where.

[00:56:00.400] - Patricia Upton

My overlander wasn't around. We called the South African Unmobile Association and we talked to a gentleman there. He says, Well, yes, there is a couple that did this about a year ago. Let me get in touch with them and see if they would like to meet you. Well, a couple of days later, we were together. We were invited into their house. We spent weeks with them. We poured over their maps and their journals and made notes about where you could get fuel, where you couldn't get fuel, where's a good place to camp. Then, of course, when they were left, they went through Zair and then Central African Republic, and then they stayed to the West, going up to cross from North Africa into Gibraltar. Well, We wanted to swing then to the East because we had to remain on land. In order to do that, we had to go through Sudan to get into Egypt, and that was our land route. We at least had two countries there where they could give us a lot information and knowledge on. That was what we did. We spent, like I said, a couple of three weeks with them going over all sorts of maps and journals and taking notes and just getting as much information as we could from them.

[00:57:15.460] - Big Rich Klein

So up to that point, once you're still in North Africa, was there times where you just felt like, this is our last day. We are not going to survive this day because of whether it would be wild animals, people, governments.

[00:57:37.700] - Patricia Upton

There were several frustrating days going through Africa because of... Wild animals are never an issue. Insects were bad. The sexy flies were tenacious and extremely bad in some places. You get to an area, beautiful area, and you think, why does that How can you even live here? Gorgeous creek. And all of a sudden you realize it's the sexy flight. There's no animals, there's no people, there's no nothing. So insects were by far horrible. Governments and border crossings and checkpoints within the countries were at the whim of whoever was manning them. It was however they wanted to do it whenever they wanted to do it, that thing. Then we did have in Sudan, well, and illness. I came down with malaria. We'd been taking the anti-molarial pills for, at that point, five months or four and a half months. Since we'd left South Africa, and we'd run out because we didn't realize it was going to take us that long to get through Africa. We had broken springs were plagued us all through Africa. Anyway, so I had come down with area by the time we'd reached Khartoum, and was hospitalized for a couple of days.

[00:59:06.920] - Patricia Upton

After I was released from the hospital, we started making preps to get north through Sudan into Egypt, and we had to have special permission to cross where we wanted to cross because it was not a necessary... It was not really where... They don't do it. There's no border check there. There's nothing. We got a special letter written by the Egyptian government in Khartoum, giving us permission to cross at that point, thank goodness. And left Khartoum and headed north. Well, I don't remember how many days we were out of Khartoum, up the Nile River. We were following the Nile River. Our navigation was pretty much following our noses at that point. Our compass had died and was no longer viable. We had a map, but how accurate it was, who knows? It wasn't really a topo map, unfortunately. We were working our way within reason close to the Nile River. This is June, so it was pretty hot. I don't remember. It had to be late in the afternoon. A big rocky outcropping of a mountain hill, not really a mountain, but a big hill, came right down to the edge of the river. Lauren took a big swing out to the west to get around this rocky outcropping, and we got into some pretty soft sand.

[01:00:33.690] - Patricia Upton

Well, we broke an access shaft. And we had used the spare shaft in Central African Republic because we've broken one there as well. So we had only front wheel drive, and anyone that knows about four wheeling in soft sand, you're not going to go too far in two wheel drive, especially front wheel drive. So we, fortunately, have a winch, hooked up the winch to some brush, and we're able to keep moving forward to get into a little bit of shade because there was virtually nonexistent shade. Like I said, we were probably close to about 120 degrees in the afternoon. That night was probably the only night of the entire trip that we were both faced with the reality that we got our butt someplace that could be pretty bad. It was not nice because we had no idea where we were. Nobody knew where we were. It wasn't like we could keep in touch with a spot or a garment or anything. That was all somebody's pipe dream that hadn't come to reality yet. That first night, Lauren said, to keep my mind occupied and get on positive things, he said, Well, let's make a list of what we need to take with us when we leave because we're going to have to leave the Jeep and hike out of here.

[01:02:03.830] - Patricia Upton

Because we didn't know where the river was at this point either. We had no idea where the river was. We sat down and he says, Now, don't talk to me and I won't talk to you. We made lists and came up with our two lists, and they were pretty identical. I think the one thing he had that I didn't was the inside rear view mirror to use as a signaling device. We said, Okay, well, if we don't have the river nearby, then what we'll have to do is we'll have to walk our supplies out so far in the late evening and then stash them and then come back to here and spend the day here and then late next day, move more supplies and just start moving supplies further and further up the river in a northerly direction at this point, as far as we could tell. And he said in the morning, I'll hike up to those rocks up there and I'll see what I see. Well, he did the next morning and the river was about a mile from where we were camped. He hiked down to the river because, again, we weren't sure how far north we were.

[01:03:06.100] - Patricia Upton

Were we so far north? We were on Lake Nasser, and then there'd be no current. And fortunately, we weren't that far north. It was a really good courage. So when he got back to camp, he says, okay, we got a plan. We're leaving the Jeep here, we're building a raft, and we're going to flat down the Nile River. And we used a tin box that was in the back of the Jeep that held our kitchen supplies Sealed it with some silicon sealant, used some tamarisk branches for outriggers, took the empty cherry cans that we had for fuel, put all the fuel in the Jeep, use those as flotation devices on this, and we put our supplies in this box. We were in the water. We weren't in our wrap. We put all our supplies in this. In the Nile. Yeah, in the Nile River. For two and a half days, we floated down the Nile River until we found a form of civilization that could take us to a bigger form of civilization.

[01:04:03.690] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[01:04:05.250] - Patricia Upton

That particular breakdown between everything that went wrong from that point on, because there were all sorts of things, the Nile The Nile River went into flood. Highest it had been since 46. Rael tracks going north were washed out. I was stuck in Khartoum. Lauren had gone back out to the Jeep, so he was at the Jeep. I was waiting for the supplies to arrive, and now there's no train going north. So I can't get out of Khartoum. I could get an international flight out of Khartoum, but I couldn't get any other transportation out of Khartoum going north. I It took about two weeks, 10 days knocking on doors, and finally, through the United Nations Development Program, they had the loan of a Belgium C-130 Hercules to buy relief supplies up to the village of Wadi Haifa, which is where the train would have gone if it had gone. From there, I could hire someone to take me upriver to where Lauren and what we call broken Axel camp was. It was a total of 70 days for a 15-minute repair job. We'd gone to free-floating axels after the actual problems in the Darian. If you're familiar, you don't even jack the vehicle up to replace the axel shaft.

[01:05:20.030] - Patricia Upton

You just onboard the hub flange, pull it out, put the new axel shaft in, put it back on, and you're done.

[01:05:26.740] - Big Rich Klein

Crazy. Yeah.

[01:05:29.410] - Patricia Upton

That was Other than the Autobahn, that was the closest life-threatening experience we had. The Autobahn was just totally... Those were two crazy people on the Autobahn. They just drive way too fast.

[01:05:41.160] - Big Rich Klein

Before we get to that, I got to ask a question about floating down the Nile. You always hear about the Nile Crocodiles.

[01:05:50.280] - Patricia Upton

Yeah. Did you guys- I think literally I was in denial because it was one of those things that there were so many other priorities in our survival that they weren't even on my radar. It was like, I don't want to know about them. They're not there. We're just going to make this work. We're going to get through this. We had no issues. Now, when we got to the village of Wadi Haifa, which is where we ended up when we found this little guy that would take us by his ready old truck through the desert to the village of Wadi Haifa, we were taken to the Crocodile Hotel. And there on the wall, over the door, was an iron crocodile. So they do exist. But my guess, and this is just my uneducated guess, is that there was nothing out there where we were. We were the only There was a thing out there that was edible. I didn't see a bird. I didn't see an animal coming down to the river for water. There was nothing. It was desert, so there was nothing out there. So I think in in my mind, and they're sticking to it, that the crocodile tends to hang around places where it knows it can get food, i.

[01:07:06.980] - Patricia Upton

E. The villages that are throwing their trash into the river and their garbage and that thing. If they're sticking around those places, then out where we were, where there was nothing.

[01:07:17.350] - Big Rich Klein

That's my thought. Right. Okay. Makes sense. And that's a good thing. I think there's only a couple of things that if I was in a situation, I've always said, I don't want to come face to face with a polar bear, and I don't want to be floating on something that's not really substantial around now, crocodiles.

[01:07:40.440] - Patricia Upton

Right.

[01:07:42.320] - Big Rich Klein

Those are the things I've always tried to Things that in my mind I want to avoid.

[01:07:47.950] - Patricia Upton

Yes, definitely. Most definitely.

[01:07:52.160] - Big Rich Klein

So you guys get the Jeep fixed, and you get your 15 minute repair that took 70 days, and you get moving again.

[01:08:04.330] - Patricia Upton

Yes.

[01:08:05.270] - Big Rich Klein

It was 36 miles and four and a half hours, and we were on a tard road in Egypt. Oh, my Lord. Yeah.

[01:08:15.610] - Patricia Upton

Wow. And we knew from that point on, there would be some form of a surface road under the tires, and that was really a good feeling.

[01:08:25.430] - Big Rich Klein

Right. I can imagine. So then you You get to Egypt, and at this point, are you still the adventure photographer employee, or have you guys- No, No, our relationship had developed, so maybe late in South America '87, but definitely by Africa.

[01:08:57.490] - Patricia Upton

So I was still definitely photographer. You look at any of the pictures I take, or any of the pictures of the expedition, I should say. If you find one of me in it, it's rare because I was always behind the camera instead of in front of it.

[01:09:11.910] - Big Rich Klein

Correct. Right. Okay. And so then, okay, so you're in Egypt, and now you're finding roads to continue north.

[01:09:22.610] - Patricia Upton

Right. What was the next step? Through Egypt, we spent some time outside the pyramids. It was a great little campground just outside the pyramids for a dollar a night. Safe, secure, really nice, lots of shade. Spent some time there, did some sightseeing in Cairo, and then We had to go straight through Cairo. Oh, my gosh. When we were there, and this is now '87, it would have been '88, it would have been middle of '88. Early '88, September '88. Yeah, September, October '88. There we go. Sorry. It was a city of 15 million people. I think every one of them drove something. It could have been a bicycle, it could have been an oxcart, it could have been an ice cream car, a trash truck, a taxi, a bus. I've never seen so much traffic in my entire life and so much disregard for laws and policemen and traffic lights. It was just crazy. We had to go all the way through Cairo to get to the Cianai. There's a tunnel underneath the Suez Canal. You drive through this very modern tunnel underneath the Suez Canal into the Cianai. Then through the Sinai, we went from Egypt into Israel.

[01:10:48.490] - Patricia Upton

They were and have been on relations. Once we got into Israel, we found out there was no way we were going to be able to drive from Israel into Jordan. Definitely, the only other option was Lebanon, and that was definitely out. This was just four and a half years after the Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut. Americans in Lebanon were definitely not a welcome site. We probably spent a week talking to people in and around Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank, United Nations people, government, both US and Israeli, trying to figure out if there was any way we could drive from Israel to Jordan. When we talked to the UN, we said, Look, paint it white, put a big blue UN on the vehicle, you drive it across the bridge, we'll fly around and pick it up over on the other side. They said, No, we don't even drive our own vehicles across it because it's a bridge. It's 20 yards long, 25 yards long across the Jordan there and outside the occupied West Bank. When we're talking bridge, we're talking just a little flat little thing. No, couldn't do it. They had to walk across the bridge and it picked up on the other side.

[01:12:05.370] - Patricia Upton

So there was no way we were going to be able to drive across. So we ended up going back into Egypt and shipping by ferry up to Aqaba, Jordan. We thought we were going to go up Airport Street, which goes right along the Israeli border, thinking maybe we'll come into some point where we can see if we could sneak across the border. Well, as we got further out of Aqaba, the airport street began to angle further away from the border than we wanted it to because there's no way we wanted to travel through open desert to the border. We'd surely get in trouble for that. We ended up coming back into Aqaba and going up the main road through the rest of Jordan, into Syria, through Syria, Turkey, and into Bulgaria, and then into Romania. In Romania, we were to get our paperwork to enter the Soviet Union, because at that time it was the Soviet Union. And all travel was regulated by their official tourist agency called Intourist. And we'd gone to the Intourist office in Cairo and we said, okay, this is where we want to enter. This is what we want to do.

[01:13:14.320] - Patricia Upton

This is the route we want to take. This is okay. And we said, and can we pick the paperwork up in Romania when we get to Bucharest? They said, yeah, because it was going to be 10 days, 2 weeks, something like that. We said, yeah. Okay, so we walked into the Bucharest office of in-tourist, and they had no idea who we were, what we wanted, or what we were doing. They said, Oh, it'll take a couple of weeks to get the paperwork. We said, Well, this was now late October. We said, Well, we're not going to go to Norway any later. This is crazy. So we ended up going across Europe and spending getting to England, crossing the channel at Cali. Through the connections we'd made with the Landrover Club, Lauren was able to find a place to stay on a potato ranch just outside Canterbury. He stayed on their potato farm for the winter. I went back to the States and got a job, stayed with my mother and worked for four months, three months, whatever it was, I was back there and wrote a lot of letters looking for sponsorship. We got a lot of products and a little bit of money, not much.

[01:14:24.550] - Patricia Upton

Our biggest sponsor, of course, was our transportation to Africa. But A permatech, Silicon Sealant, a loctite company, sent us $500 for using their product to seal up the tin box that we floated down the Nile in.

[01:14:44.680] - Big Rich Klein

You had pictures of it, right?

[01:14:47.140] - Patricia Upton

Oh, yeah. I rejoined Lauren in England in April. I think it was April. Then we took off back across the the channel to Cali and then picked up where we left off and went through Belgium, the Netherlands, and then what was West Germany and East Germany, and into Poland, and then into the Soviet Union. We'd arrange for all the in-tourist stuff in London before we left there. So we had a whole packet. You could travel no more than 500 kilometers a day. You couldn't travel before daylight or after dark. You could only stay in pre-approved campsite and tourist motels, that thing. We had our whole route planned out ahead of time, so we knew where we were going to be every night and that, and then entered the Soviet Union, and I think it was four nights in the Soviet Union, and then into Finland. From Finland, it was through a little bit of Sweden, I believe, and then into Norway. At that time, we didn't know where the furthest road north was. Again, you're just pointing yourself north and keep driving and hope that the road stays that way. We'd stop in towns and villages and say, What town is further up?

[01:16:09.400] - Patricia Upton

Is it further north? We do this constantly until we finally got to one place where we went into the police station. He said, yes, there is a town, a little fishing village up at Gambic. It's further north. It's right on the ocean, and it's a dirt road that goes there. It's not a paved road. In fact, it was a dirt road that was just a little bit wider than a... It wasn't really two lanes wide, but it was so straight and there was no vegetation that it had little pull-off. So if you saw a car coming, you went off to the pull-off and let them go by and vice versa. There was virtually no traffic anyway. But that's where we ended the trip was at the town of Gamvick, Norway, the fishing village. Actually, we drove just a little bit outside the village, a wee-tad further north to the lighthouse that's located there. And that was the official end of the trip. And since Lauren had taken one American made vehicle around the world on a north-south course, all on land, except for the South Atlantic, even though we still lack that Israeli thing in there, that was still eating at us.

[01:17:14.150] - Patricia Upton

We wanted to finish on an American holiday. So we finished on the fourth of July, 1989. From there, we came back into... Well, actually, we went ahead and took the ferry to North Cape because everyone considers North Cape to the northern part of Europe, which it is further north, but again, it's an island. There's now a bridge there, so you wouldn't have to take the ferry. But we went as far north on the island of North Cape, then came back into Europe and shipped back to the States. Then we worked because we were desperately out of money and then got this job here in Idaho and worked. You know how life gets in the way of your plans. In 2000, we thought things were settled down in Israel Israel. The borders were open. We were going to be able to drive from one country to the other. We had the Jeep serviced and refurbished and done some things to, and we were going to ship her back to Israel and drive what we called the final mile, when in October of 2000, Arafat started another whole intafada going over there. We thought, Well, maybe we ought to rethink this.

[01:18:28.260] - Patricia Upton

Americans driving a red Jeep with California license plates may not be the best thing right now. It was all put back on the back burner again. It wasn't until 2017 that we started again Lauren's nephew, Lawrence, that had been with us for the first 30 days in the Darian Gap, he said, We're going to get you back to Israel. And he took the Jeep and he and another couple of guys, volunteered work, refurbished it, got her painted and new Firestone sent us new tires. Rancho sent us new shock absorbers. And is it Omex, Omex, Omex, Eda? Eda Omex, something out of Atlanta. They sent us a whole new wiring harness, which she desperately needed when Mike was rewiring it, he said, I don't know how this thing never caught fire. He says, Lauren had more electrical tape in here than anything else, and he had different gage wires going to different gage wires, thing going to heavier, heavier, going to thinner. He said, It's a miracle this thing never blew up. That was all done. Then our only goal now was to raise the cash to ship the discovery back to Israel. When the man we'd been working for for 28 years says he could see how Lauren's health was deteriorating, and he says, You have to go sooner rather than later, because we were going to go 2018.

[01:20:00.190] - Patricia Upton

He says, I will put up all the money for your transportation. That's for both of you to fly and the Jeep. So he paid everything for the Jeep from Richland, Washington to Ashton, Israel, and back again. And he paid for our air fare out of LAX to Israel and back. And that was a lifesaver. That was 99 % of the budget right there. Everything else was nothing compared to the transportation costs. And so on. May third, 2018, we drove from a road we were on in Israel over to Airport Street in Jordan, made a U-turn and came right back into Israel. Took about, I think, over four and a half hours to do the whole thing with the border crossings. I think it ended up being about three miles round trips or three miles across. We always call it the final mile, but it ended up being a little bit more than a mile.

[01:20:53.660] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's pretty cool that you were able to get it completed.

[01:20:57.160] - Patricia Upton

Yeah, it was officially done. That's when the SS Discovery, the Sandship Discovery had all four tires on the ground around the world. It was on May third, 2018.

[01:21:06.930] - Big Rich Klein

Very good. You were working for this guy. What were you doing?

[01:21:17.940] - Patricia Upton

The glorified term would have been residential property manager. It was a family home up here in Idaho, summer home that he used spring, summer summer, fall. We did everything. You named it, we repaired, we replaced, we put boats in the water, we serviced them, we took ATVs and serviced them, cooked, cleaned, gardened, built decks, built docks, You name it, we did it. It was basically anything and everything you could do to maintain a, what is it? It's about a 3,000-foot square foot log home up here in Idaho for him. It was It was great because it was closed down in the wintertime, so we'd shut everything down and head south for the winter. That's when we saw you and Charlie down in Arizona as we were down there for the winter. It allowed us the freedom of getting out of the cold, getting into desert and that thing, but still coming back in spring and starting all over again.

[01:22:23.930] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Then you've We got an adventure coming up this year that will actually be there alongside you, or actually during the days will be behind you, but you're going to be on the rebel?

[01:22:47.830] - Patricia Upton

Yes.

[01:22:49.500] - Big Rich Klein

Talk about how that all came about.

[01:22:53.270] - Patricia Upton

Something both that my father had instilled in me from an early age was there's no such word as can't. You may not want to, you may not be able to because you're too short or something like that. There's some things that you may not be able to do, but that doesn't mean you can't do them. I always grew up with that mental philosophy. Then after meeting Lauren, of course, it was, if it doesn't work, damn it, make it work. A man is only as good as his word. Those things are have always been my guiding things in life. We were sitting, Connie and a whole group of us were sitting around a campfire chat in Pacific Northwest Expo Overland last year in Redmond, Oregon. Mostly women, talking to a couple of past rebells, asking questions, that thing. A couple of rookie rebells that were going to be running in 2024. It was something I had known about for several years because I'd known people that had been in it, and I watched it online and I thought, I'd like to be able to be involved in this. Maybe set up tables and chairs, be a timekeeper, carry lugg, just that thing.

[01:24:15.150] - Patricia Upton

That's more my interest in it at that point. I don't know, something was said and someone asked me something. I said, Yeah, I'd like to be involved with the Rebell. Connie Rodman stood up out in the middle of the audience and she said, No, I take it back. She stood up and came walking over to me. This is still while this whole thing is going on. And she squats down next to me. She said, You're serious? You want to be in the rebel? And I thought, Well, yeah. So here we are, both of us. We've now announced to a whole group of people that we're going to do the rebel. So it was one of those things that, Okay, we're going to do the rebel. It was an eye opener. Let's see, I think it was sometime in August, I finally got together because of our schedules, I couldn't get with Connie until after Overland Expo West, and she lives in Denver, or near Denver. So I spent some time with her there, and we started working on budgets and lists of sponsors and equipment and this and that, and vehicle, and just it was like, oh, my gosh, now I'm totally overwhelmed.

[01:25:22.760] - Patricia Upton

It was an eye opener to begin with, but you start like anything. How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Well, we're doing it one bite at a time. Overland Expo East, we're standing around chatting Thursday night before the events even started with some people. I don't know, there's five or six of us Connie's there, her husband's there, Azure O'Neill and someone else. We're just all talking, and a couple of other guys walk into the group and talking. Connie just starts tapping me. She says, Patty. I look at her and she says, We've got a vehicle. I I just look at her totally dumbfounded because she could have been speaking Greek and I would have understood it as well. She says, No, we got a vehicle for the Rebell. She points this gentleman across the circle from us. He looks at me. He says, Yes, you have a vehicle for the rebel Raleigh. This man was Matt Feldman from AEV Conversions. Oh, my God. You talk about jaw-dropping. They're loaning us a 2023 Rubicon Wrangler to run in the Rebell. He is so fascinated with the story of the sandship discovery and what we've done with it that he's going to do the best to make the 2023 look like a '66 CJ5.

[01:26:40.930] - Patricia Upton

Totally impossible, but he's going to do the best to make it look like that. He just wants to capitalize on the discovery. People have asked, Why aren't you running the discovery? Well, she's seen her miles. She's done her thing, and she is totally top-heavy and unstable in sand dunes.

[01:26:58.610] - Big Rich Klein

You need to have the stability in sand dunes.

[01:27:02.670] - Patricia Upton

Right, yes. All her weight is high. She has very little weight low. I said, No, as much as I would like to, she just... No, not the vehicle for the rebel.

[01:27:16.200] - Big Rich Klein

I had that as a question mark here in my notes.

[01:27:23.270] - Patricia Upton

As much as I wouldn't it be great if we could just even have her out on the site, that would be terrific. Here she is. But yeah, right now she's actually in a museum in Manhattan, Kansas, in the Midwest Dream Car collection.

[01:27:37.890] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[01:27:38.480] - Patricia Upton

She's on display there. I'm looking at other museums, and I've been in contact with the San Diego Auto Museum, and they are definitely showing some interest in probably early 2026, which works out because I still want to take her to shows this year to display her with the vehicle that will be running in the Rebells. We'll see what comes of it.

[01:28:03.000] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. How did you meet Connie?

[01:28:07.250] - Patricia Upton

I'm through Overland Expo several years ago. I knew of her for a while, and then I actually met her two years ago, two and a half years ago at West. Then just vaguely, just a little bit, not really talk to her that much. Then at I want to say it was a Northwest Overland rally in Plain, Washington this year, I talked with her husband, Graham Jackson, quite a bit. I think that's what the two of them probably got together and started discussing. I don't know. I don't know how all that came together. But yeah, I think it's going to be a good match. It's going to be driver. I'm going to be navigator. We'll see.

[01:28:57.800] - Big Rich Klein

Have you taken or are going to take any of the Rebell Navigation courses?

[01:29:04.780] - Patricia Upton

Yes, we're signed up for the four-day course in April in Ocatillo. The one in February that's run by Nina and Rebell U is just too close for me to be able to get around. I don't know how mobile I'm going to be in February. I'm guessing not very.

[01:29:24.170] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:29:24.790] - Patricia Upton

So I don't want to push something, try to push some rehab that I may not be ready for. We're going to do the one in April, and then we're going to do the three-day intensive navigation in Ridgecrest. We'll see how our schedules work out for the four-day one in Ridgecrest a few weeks later. I think both of those are in August sometime. No, the three-day in Ridgecrest navigation is in June, and then there's a four-day in Ridgecrest in August. That one, we're toying with schedules right now, and we're not sure about that one. We'll see how we do as time gets closer.

[01:30:09.040] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Where are you residing now? Are you back in Arizona?

[01:30:16.700] - Patricia Upton

No, I'm unfortunately in Idaho.

[01:30:18.580] - Big Rich Klein

You're in Idaho. That's right. Okay.

[01:30:19.840] - Patricia Upton

Yeah. Several years ago, one great thing that we had when we worked up at the Lake for a man we We had an apartment over the garage, so we didn't have any room or board, or a room, I should say. We didn't pay water, we didn't pay utilities, we didn't pay rent. That was all part of the package while we worked there. Well, when Laura's illness took quite a turn and he could no longer do those stairs to get downstairs for doctor's appointments or whatever because the apartment was upstairs. I had to find a place here in town to move to. So fortunately, I found a little tiny home here in town that's got a big piece of property around it right on the river, although it's way above the river, but it's a gorgeous location. It's in town, but you wouldn't know it. It's a dead end, so I don't have anybody right here in front of me. I look out over the town. So it's been very convenient living in town. But I'm not a winter person, and I'm definitely not a winter person when I can't get around. If I can get out and put my cleats on and walk, I'm good, but that's not going to be for a while yet.

[01:31:35.580] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to... I'll probably catch you this year before we get on the rebel at some of those trainings. I try to volunteer at those as well and work on the core staff during that. Then, of course, on the rebel, the same thing. I hope to see you.

[01:31:57.310] - Patricia Upton

I understand. You work as our cleanup So when we were out there so far lost, you hint that maybe we're not in the right place.

[01:32:04.810] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. I just make sure that everybody gets back to camp before the next morning.

[01:32:13.100] - Patricia Upton

I appreciate that. It's good to know there's somebody out there looking out for us.

[01:32:20.580] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah. And we're watching everybody. That eye in the sky, you might say.

[01:32:25.090] - Patricia Upton

Yeah. We keep telling people this. This is no GPS, no cell phone. Know nothing. Everyone else in the world can find out where we are. We just won't have any clue whatsoever.

[01:32:35.400] - Big Rich Klein

Correct. Exactly. And all those maps you'll use, they may have a road, but there's no marking to tell you what road it is. What the road is, the cities are taken out. It's a map, but it's not much of a map.

[01:32:53.960] - Patricia Upton

Well, fortunately, I've probably been through probably a good 80 or 90 % of the terrain that we're going to go through because we spent nine months in the Jeep traveling. We never did the dunes. We were to the dunes, but we never did the dunes. We did enough dunes in Africa. But we did soft sands, flat stretches, that thing. But the Kelso area, the Armagosa, Johnson Valley, these are all places that we spent weeks traveling in and camping and spending time in. Of course, that was 25 years ago, too, so I won't remember any of it. But yeah, these are all places that I've already probably been through.

[01:33:35.060] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. Very good. Well, Patricia, I want to say thank you so much for spending the time this morning and doing this interview. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the story that includes this year and the Rebell, but I'll get that in person. We're looking forward to getting this out there and your story. How can people help with your endeavor to do the Rebell? Do you have anything set up?

[01:34:08.360] - Patricia Upton

We do. Well, first of all, on the Rebell site, there is a place they can click on shop and they can buy gifts certificates, and that can go towards our training cost, because that's going to be a big chunk of change right there is the cost for training, not only the training itself, but then we also have to factor in the transportation to get there, the lodging, that thing. But they can buy on the rebel site, they can buy gift certificates for us or on our own website, our team is called TNT, Tried and True.

[01:34:44.120] - Big Rich Klein

Tried and True. Okay.

[01:34:45.750] - Patricia Upton

Right. And I think it's tnt-triedandtrue. Com. And there is a link on there to our GoFundMe page where they can donate or they can just go to GoFundMe and search Connie and Patty It'll pop up. And then on my website, which is outbackofbeyond. Com, I have a page under... Oh, shoot. Schedule, I think. Then the first thing that pops up is the Rebell. Then there's a page there that gives a little bit of a bio on both Connie and I, who our sponsors are so far, and links to places that the GoFundMe and the the Rebell Youth site, the donations can be made.

[01:35:34.170] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. We haven't mentioned it while we're recording, but you're recovering from surgery, ankle surgery, and you hope to be 100% when the rebel comes around. We hope you are as well. That's why you're still up in Idaho?

[01:35:56.110] - Patricia Upton

Yes.

[01:35:56.630] - Big Rich Klein

In the snow with your little puppy there?

[01:36:01.410] - Patricia Upton

Yeah, sorry. I don't know what she's seeing outside. Oh, it's all good.

[01:36:05.460] - Big Rich Klein

It's all good.

[01:36:06.330] - Patricia Upton

That's life. It could be deer in the yard or something. But yeah, she's got to get her two cents out there.

[01:36:11.810] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Well, again, Patty, thank you so much. Rich for spending the time and telling your story, and I'm really looking forward to the continuation of it.

[01:36:23.000] - Patricia Upton

Thank you, Rich, for your time. I appreciate this so much.

[01:36:26.250] - Big Rich Klein

And you take care, and we will talk later.

[01:36:29.620] - Patricia Upton

All right. Thank you.

[01:36:30.700] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Bye-bye.

[01:36:32.530] - Patricia Upton

Bye.

[01:36:34.270] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have, or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.