Stranded in a blizzard with nothing but my trusty GMC Canyon and a spirit for adventure, I, Craig the Natural Medic, embraced the wintery wilds of Lead, South Dakota. Tucked away in an old 1902 miner's house, my journey as a remote paramedic has become a trove of stories, and I can't wait to share the latest chapters from my closet-turned-studio with you. Snowshoeing exploits and unexpected snow-ins are just the beginning of the tales I've weathered, and there's a slew of visual stories on the YouTube channel that add even more color to these snowy sojourns.
As I navigate the crisp trails and national park sites, I've got some behind-the-scenes tidbits to reveal about the tools and tricks that breathe life into our Natural Medic Adventures. Once separate entities, the podcast, and YouTube channel, are now intertwined thanks to the wonders of modern tech like Descript. And stay tuned—there's talk of upcoming interviews and remote recordings that are set to infuse new vitality into our shared experiences. So join me, gear up for some sparkling new content, and let's continue this adventure together, where every step outside is a step into the heart of nature's untamed clinic.
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Video/Podcast edited using descript. Find out more here: https://www.descript.com/?lmref=Sqa-bw
Hi, this is Craig the Natural Medic. It's been a little while since I've done a standalone podcast so I figured I needed to do an update for you. I am currently in LEED. It looks like lead. If you look at it on the map there's actually pronounced LEED, south Dakota, working on a project up here as a remote paramedic travel paramedic, if you prefer. I wanted to give you a short update on the current status of the podcast, youtube channel etc. And some things to expect in the future.
Speaker 1:
I do appreciate you listening and I do appreciate your attention and all that kind of stuff in supporting the show. If you would like to offer any kind of monetary support for the show, I produce the show. I am the primary star for lack of a better term of the show. I edit the show and then I post that to Buzzsprout for the audio version for people to take a gander at and hopefully they can get some value out of it. It takes some time. I enjoy doing it, but there are some links on support the show. If you want to do that, that's lovely and I would love that, but not necessary. I'm happy to offer this to you with no cost to you, just to get some information out.
Speaker 1:
Anyways, I'm recording this on February, the 4th, 2024, from this really strange closet. I wish I could show you this closet the house that I'm staying in. I'm renting part of the house. It's an old 1902 Miner's house. This is when it was made. This town here, leed, was the home of the home steak mine, which was one of the richest gold mines Not sure about in the world, but definitely in the United States. It operated for a long time over 100 years and produced millions of dollars, if not possibly billions worth, of gold. Now it's turning into a science lab and I'm helping to work with on that project as a medic, one of the medics on site. We have several medics that are working there. But anyway, enough of that. Let's talk about the meat potatoes of the natural medic adventures. The natural medic adventures.
Speaker 1:
I created it almost three years ago. I had two separate deals going YouTube channel and a podcast audio podcast. I added after the fact I was creating separate tracks or separate information, separate content for both of them, and it became too overwhelming. But I'm using a wonderful. I'll give a shout out to Descript. I pay for their service. It's relatively inexpensive for a year's worth of it. It's a cloud-based service that allows me to edit my audio projects, my video projects and coming soon, which I'll talk about a little bit later. It allows me to do remote recordings of people if I'm going to interview them, like for a podcast type format.
Speaker 1:
I want to get back to that again, like I said, in just a little bit, but I'm inside of this closet because hopefully the acoustics are good and you can hear me pretty well. But before I get into that, I want to give a shout out to Deadface forlaufing me. We'll actually see four things clear out outside of theirs. How would you predict how many they'll work? But I don't know how much longer I'm going to be in South Dakota.
Speaker 1:
It's been a strange weather pattern. Christmas night it snowed like somewhere between 12 and 18 inches, like in the 24 hour period, which was pretty crazy. I've never really lived in a place that had such a high snowfall. I have visited places like that but I've never lived in those places and I got stuck twice in my truck. I have a four wheel drive GMC Canyon that usually does pretty good in the snow and the ice and it depends on the operator right Got stuck. So I had some adventures there. I've done some snowshoeing. Definitely check out the YouTube channel. I have some more things that didn't carry over to the audio for whatever reason. It didn't post successfully to Buzzsprout so the audio version is not there. But if you go to my YouTube channel, which is the same name the Natural Medic Adventures you can definitely see some adventures that I've done while I've been here. I'm working on some.
Speaker 1:
I just went out last weekend to almost all of the National Park sites within the, I say, about a hundred square miles or a hundred mile radius. Lead, if you don't know, is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, which is in the western part of the state. The southwestern part of the state Lead is what's considered the northern hills. The hills are divided in half the northern and the southern hills. It's not too terribly far to go to Wyoming. I did go to Wyoming, to Devil's Tower about a week ago yeah, almost exactly a week ago from today and to hike to trail. I had not hiked before. That's coming up on the channel soon. Talking about that experience, I'll try to do another when I go back.
Speaker 1:
I'm going back to Devil's Tower again this next weekend. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite national parks. I know it's called a national monument but the National Park Service who administers it? I love that place. It's not very big but that monolith of that rock is so incredibly amazing. It's almost just when I'm there and I've been there like three times. Two times in the last six months I was on my rotation from the other my other project I was working on. I had a week off. They called a rotation and I got to go to some sites and Devil's Tower was like the last site that I visited and really and truly it was probably the most. They were all interesting, but it was the most interesting in my opinion and we'll always hold a special place in my heart.
Speaker 1:
If you've never been out to Devil's Tower, it's in Northeastern Wyoming, I guess the closest airports have ever wanted to come visit by plane. The rent a car would be maybe possibly Gillette, wyoming. It's about an hour and 20 minutes probably from Gillette and it's about two hours and change from Rapid City, south Dakota. Rapid City is the regional large city for the Black Hills area. It's on the east side of the Black Hills. I haven't really been there very much. I've been staying here and leave. The job is here and leave. Can't tell you much about Rapid City other than they have a pretty decent airport, pretty easy to get in and out of and security. Going through it as an entering, as a passenger took me about 15 minutes the two times I've flown out of it, or is it one time anyway, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:
But I want to tell you about my friend Mark, who's been on the channel before. He lives in the Dallas area. He's actually from Waco and we've done several hikes on Lake Texoma area of Texas on the Crosstimbers Trail which is a really nice backpacking trail, not too far it's about 90 minutes due north of Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. It's like right in the center of the Metroplex Great trail. It's probably the most remote trail, I would say, and longest also in the Dallas-Fort Worth North Texas area because it's right on the border with Oklahoma on the. It's on the Texas side Anyway. But he's been on my show a couple of times. We've recorded when we've been the backpacking together. He's recorded some stuff with me. But he's going to come on sometime I'm hoping this month and talk about better ways to sleep. You know tips and tricks you can do to get better sleep in the outdoors.
Speaker 1:
Neither one of us are hammock campers and I, you know I have nothing against hammock camping, I've tried it, but I had the kind of the let's say how do we say this? I had improper equipment, let's put it that way and unfortunately it didn't go like I wanted it to go. But I'm willing to try it again sometime in the future when I have the right equipment. Just FYI, don't buy a random hammock set up from Amazon and expect it to work for you, especially if you're six foot two and two hundred and something pounds, like I am. If you're a smaller person it probably would work out. So am I okay for you, but for a taller person like myself probably not. But anyway, I hope to have him on.
Speaker 1:
I have another guy that I kind of know. What is his name? I'm trying to think of his name, crow. I'm not sure what his first name is off him, but I have asked him to come on and talk about some adventures that he's had in Wyoming and other places. He's becoming a big name in the hiking community, so hope to have him on sometime soon. A friend of mine, jill, who is a physical therapist in the Dallas area, hope to have her on. She's had some issues with her doggo. He's been under the weather and she's been nursing him back to health, so hope to get her on soon. She's gonna talk about some injury prevention and what to do if you actually do get injured on the trail. I think that'll be helpful to a lot of people. That's upcoming on the podcast.
Speaker 1:
They have told me but I am not completely sure at this point that I will be leaving South Dakota. I wasn't gonna be leaving, I thought this month, but we have a new person starting because the other person at night left. Yep, I'm working the night shift 6 pm to 6 am, but it gives me lots of opportunities to work on my videos and podcasts and stuff like that. So I've been taking advantage of that and also could keep up with some continuing education and other things that I have to do, because generally at night I don't see any patients. Most of the people are underground and I don't have to worry about them and that's a good thing.
Speaker 1:
But the deal is, I would say, probably late February, early March I'll probably moving on to another project, still with the same company, but they we have projects all over the United States with different companies where we provide remote or travel paramedic coverage, basically provide EMS slash urgent care kind of assistance at sites so they have an on site medic in case somebody gets hurt or have to do a drug screen or something like that. We're there, available for that. I have to go where the job wants me and I've heard through the grapevine I wouldn't hold it 100% a candle to this, but I've heard through the grapevine that they may want to send me to either Florida or Louisiana to work at a solar farm, which will be a new experience. The project I was working at in Laramie, wyoming or outside Laramie Wyoming, which was my first project with the company, was a wind site and they were building foundations. When I was there they didn't have any towers up yet but they were building foundations and roads and that kind of stuff to access the site etc. And a solar farm would be totally different. Here I can't really talk about what they do here because I really don't know, but they're doing some kind of underground science facility construction here in LEED and that's pretty fascinating. If you're ever in LEED, they do have a visitor center that tells you all about what they're doing. That's beyond my understanding.
Speaker 1:
I'm not a physicist, I'm not that kind of scientist. I would say I'm a scientist because my bachelor's degree is in forestry, so I know a lot about forests and I know a lot about the recreation side of things. And I also know I've been a paramedic officially this year I would be a paramedic for 10 years and EMS for 11 years, give or take. So I know a lot about those subjects. But as far as physics and the universe and stuff like that, I don't know a whole heck of a lot. But anyway, that's a summary of what's coming down the pipe for the next, I would say, three to four months here on the Natural Medic Adventures.
Speaker 1:
If you're not subscribed to me on the YouTube channel, I recommend you do that as well. There should be a link in the description of this podcast. We can check that out. If you haven't checked that out already, I would love for you to subscribe over there. Lots of videos over there. Some are not on the audio version of the podcast, so you can get some different content over there, and it's all free. Again, if you want to support, there's places to support. Thanks so much, though, for your listener support Just listening to the show. I appreciate you being out there and listening and all that good stuff, and I hope you have a happy February and the rest of 2024. Until next time I'll see you out on the trail.