The Perfect Vacation & a Failed Adventure
Published August 04, 2025 · 17:36 · 111,537 views
About This Video
At nearly eighteen minutes, this is one of the channel's longest episodes, and the runtime earns itself through a structural gambit: two stories braided together, one about a perfect vacation and one about a failed adventure. The juxtaposition isn't decorative. It's the argument. The perfect vacation succeeds by being bounded, predictable, contained. The failed adventure fails by being ambitious, open-ended, and honest about its own limitations.
The deeper question Van is circling is whether failure in adventure is worth more than success in comfort. He doesn't answer it cleanly, which is the right call. The failed adventure produces better footage, better stories, and better self-knowledge. The perfect vacation produces rest. Both are necessary, and the tension between them is what keeps a creative life from collapsing into either burnout or complacency.
Transcript
One of the things last night film was his wonderful use of the wood. An adventure is like an art project.
Worry about the details. and the big picture will take care of itself provided there is a big picture.
An adventure contains a mission. A vacation is optimized for convenience and laziness. This is the lazy river at the
hotel. A vacation is for rest and rest is important. Rest is part of the discipline. [Music] But I wanted a mission and for my sins
they gave me one. David Lynch is dead. Long live David Lynch. I got to really indulge in sound and music for this
episode thanks to our sponsor Epidemic Sound. And I just want to show you how it works. So, I made a mistake recording
sound for the sequence where the Land Cruiser gets stuck. I had the air conditioning on in the car. You just
heard the blower sound from the air conditioner. All right, so we're going to pull forward and jerk. You couldn't hear the engine. I dropped
the bass in the recorded sound that I recorded with the GoPro. That eliminated the blower sound. All right, so we're going to pull
forward and jerk. I needed the sound of my diesel engine. So, I went and just searched in the sound effects for diesel engine, and
there's a whole bunch to choose from. I just clicked and played and clicked and played until I heard one that sounded
like my diesel engine, and that just became the bed for that entire sequence. All right, so we're going to pull
forward and jerk. All right, so we're going to pull forward and jerk. All right, so we're going to pull forward
and jerk. And when you watch it, you won't be able to tell. It just sounds like my truck. And then I did the same thing for the
mosquitoes sequence. 50,000 tracks, 200,000 sound effects, zero learning curve. It's totally obvious how to use it. It's the
soundtracking platform for every creator. It's definitely the best one. These are all premium tracks by real
artists. And what you can do is you can download the stems, which is the component parts, if you only want to use
the bass, if you don't want to use the drums. It's different for each song, but for this particular song, I wanted the
instruments for the beginning part of this sequence, and then I let the bass kick in when I wanted it to kick in.
Epidemic Sound is restrictionfree music, straightforward licensing, very fair, definitely the best one. I'm going to
use it again. I'm going to use it a lot. Click the link in the description for a free trial. Free trial don't get you the
licensing, cheap skates. And thank you Epidemic Sound for sponsoring this episode and this trip. [Music]
Loose organized, not hyper organized. [Music] [Applause] Nails. Now stand up straight. shims. Oh, you are so close to 48.
How close? You're not even 3/4 of an inch. [Music] CZ YZ XIX road. That's funny. [Music] [Music] people are such pigs. No, cuz this one's
big. We have a boat fit in. Come here. All right. Okay. We also actually have to go to the bathroom. Oh my gosh. All right. Wait. Now I
actually have to go to the bathroom. Okay. Turn backwards. Nice. You just made it by like half an inch.
There you go. [Music] [Music] screen. [Music] The day before the trip is microacking. These are thermosels that keep the
mosquitoes away. They're little ovens. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] There was 800,000 hungry mosquitoes when
we got out of that truck. Thermosel keeps them all away. No mosquitoes. Yeah. So, what was the name of this lake?
I forgot. But this is all aspen on the side here. Beautiful. There's a six-year-old. Awesome. Sleeping back watching the Simpsons cuz
I'm a bad dad. I don't know where they are. I see him. I see you. Hey, are you the stuck got people? Yeah, we got we went a little too far
and it got too soft on us, boss. Oh, okay. Are you camping? Yes. Okay, so we'll do it in the morning.
We'll pull you up. Sure. For sure. All right, let's go get a look at it, though. Let's see our situation.
Michael. Yes, sir. You ready for me to come pull you? Yes, sir. All right, let's do it. Okay. Bike lock, adjustable wrench, and
I've got a socket. [Music] Half inch nashes. Something told me to back this. And then I'm going to bolt the chain
like this. That's good. It probably won't tear your bumper off. Jerk them hard. All right. So, we're going to pull forward and jerk.
Can I try it again? Yeah. Why don't you film? Why don't you film? Okay. Okay. Oh boy. This is what I was afraid was going to
happen. Did you just dig yourself in? Yeah. Oh no. [Music] Well, we took ourselves out, but they they're not out. They're not out.
[Music] Oh boy. [Music] Oh my god. You did it. That was fun. Hey, thank you, bro. Is that your car or her car?
Oh, great. Now you're in deep. Uh-oh. Look what happened. I tore the I tore his tow hitch off. That was very
satisfying packing to have those bolts. [Music] So, here's a little detail. I don't want this plunger to get destroyed when it's
packed. So, I made this little protector out of a pelro, plastic pelro bottle. I love this place. There's no lights on.
Okay. One. [Music] [Applause] [Music] And this is the vacation on the adventure. [Music] The girls flew in and thus began the
vacation on the adventure. You can do both at the same time and 2500 miles is a lot of driving. Good for little babies.
Don't touch it, buddy. It's not bad. Just fishing it. Wait, I caught something. Whoa, you caught something.
Railroad spikes. Somebody dropped their railroad spikes in there. X dropped a magnet down in here and he
pulled out these perfectly blackened railroad spikes. Iron. You I've never seen these not rusted before.
The ladies brought the vacation within the adventure and the stomach virus within the adventure. [Music]
and diarrhea shovel deep for each lanes. But we got that sorted. Everybody's been sick on this trip, so I
got an infirmary set up in the back of the car while we go check out Old Faithful. [Music] Wow, that's cool. Everybody claps.
[Music] Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Texas, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, California, Montana,
Tennessee, New York, New York. Lots of Montana cuz we're headed towards Montana. [Music] An adventure contains a mission. in.
I'm just wandering blindly. I called Kevin who lives here, who used to live here for help, but I think it's too
early. I think maybe he's sleeping. I'm having a hard time finding the right Missoula sign. I guess I'll just find
train tracks and go backwards. headed onto a dirt road, which I would love for it to be here, but I don't know. This doesn't seem like I'm
on the right. So, I'm looking for a Missoula sign to hang my sign on. And it needs to be remote, as remote as
possible. And I don't know where I'm likely to It's very hard. That's very And this is also my absolute number one
top of the pile weakness is orientering. It is the thing I am worse at than anything. I'm better at physics than I
am at orientering. All right, cool. I'm going to try this one. Thank you so so much. So, this is where Kevin sent me, but I
didn't see any posts. I didn't see any signs on the way in. So Braxton sent me this one, which looks kind of perfect.
Okay, so here's one that Braxton found, but I just it's mounted on steel. Maybe that's a good one. Maybe that's the one
I want. So I'm just going to measure the holes in the sign to see if they match the holes on the sign post.
Exactly 21 in on center. And this isn't the sign. This is a different sign. This isn't the signpost, but I think it's
made of the same material. Looks like 21 in on center is going to fit. This one's the most picturesque. So,
we'll do this one. Okay. I'm nervous. But let's just do it. This is a huge mistake. The tape. I don't know why it's taped. I don't know
why. Maybe I didn't want it to tear through the through the cardboard. So far, this is what's holding me,
screwing me. Getting nervous. Every car that passes by, is that a police car? Is that aing somebody not minding their own
business car? This is a real stupid bummer. This is about as stressed out as I get. Okay, let's just All right, here
we go. All right. Uh-oh. The hardware is not long enough. Different size hardware. Different size hardware. I got to abort. You
motherucker. I think of everything. I tested it. Different size hardware. I got to abort. An art project
ah that's is like an adventure. Take care of the details and the big picture will take care of itself
provided there is a big picture. I went back and checked the footage. It took the cop 3 minutes to respond to my
arrival and I cased the neighborhood before hanging the sign. 3 minutes, man. We once found guns magnet fishing in Echo Park. We called
the cops. Took him 45 minutes to show up. Somebody snitched. But over the course of 2 minutes and 32 seconds, eight folks driving into
Missoula got to be reminded that Missoula, Montana is the birthplace of David Lynch, the great American artist.
And I was reminded that Burner Herzog says to forge permits, David Lynch says to get permits. I did neither.
Our vacation was perfect, but the adventure was a failure for now. Join our Patreon team at $5 a month for
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Products & Tools Mentioned
- Epidemic Sound essential — sponsor, music/sound effects platform
- Land Cruiser essential — vehicle used on adventure, gets stuck
- GoPro uses — camera used to record sound
- Thermacell uses — mosquito repellent device (auto-caption: 'thermosel')
People Referenced
David Lynch, Werner Herzog
Films & Media Referenced
- son watching in sleeping bag