Costa Rica Trip Recap: Jimny Rental, Volcano Resorts & Kat Cox In Studio
Hard Parking with Jhae Pfenning
Costa Rica Trip Recap: Jimny Rental, Volcano Resorts & Kat Cox In Studio
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Concept
vehicle recall
A vehicle recall happens when a car company finds a problem with some of their cars that could be unsafe. They ask owners to bring the car back so they can fix it for free.
Car
Ford F Super Duty
The Ford F Super Duty is a big, strong truck made by Ford that can carry heavy loads and tow trailers. The years 2022 to 2026 mean the newer versions of this truck.
Car
Ford F
The Ford F-100 is an old-style big truck that people used a long time ago. It’s popular with collectors and people who like old trucks.
Car
Ford F150S
The Ford F-150 is a popular truck made by Ford that many people use for work and everyday driving. It's known for being tough and reliable.
Car
Ford Etransit
The Ford E-Transit is a big van that runs on electricity instead of gas. It’s used by businesses to carry things without polluting the air.
Car
Lincoln Navigator
The Lincoln Navigator is a big, fancy SUV made by Lincoln, which is part of Ford. It's comfortable and has lots of space for people and stuff.
Car
Ford Expedition
The Ford Expedition is a big SUV made by Ford that can carry lots of people and pull heavy trailers. It's good for families and outdoor trips.
Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is a medium-sized truck that can carry heavy things and drive on rough roads, but it’s not too big to handle easily. It’s good if you want a truck that’s strong but still easy to park and drive.
Car
Ford Maverick
The Ford Maverick is a small truck that’s easy to drive and doesn’t use much gas. It’s good for people who want a truck but don’t need a big one, making it popular for city driving and everyday use.
Car
Suzuki Jimny
The Suzuki Jimny is a small SUV that can drive on rough roads and trails. It's easy to park and good for adventures because it can go places normal cars can't.
Term
diesel version
A diesel version means the car runs on diesel fuel, which is different from regular gas and can help the car use fuel more efficiently.
Term
gas version
A gas version means the car runs on regular gasoline fuel, like what you put in most cars, not diesel or electricity.
Concept
pump your own gas
In some places, you don't fill your car with gas yourself. Someone at the gas station does it for you.
Car
Acura MDX
The Acura MDX is a type of SUV that can drive well on different roads, including some rough or tricky ones.
Part
A-pillar
The A-pillar is the part of the car frame next to the front windshield. It helps keep the car strong but can block your view when driving.
Concept
blind spot
A blind spot is a place around your car that you can't see when you're driving. This can make it hard to know if something or someone is there.
Car
Ford Explorer
The Ford Explorer is a big car that can carry families and lots of stuff, and it can also drive on rough roads. It’s like a big, comfortable car that can go on adventures.
Car
Ford Everest
The Ford Everest is a type of SUV, which is a bigger car that can drive on rough roads and carry lots of people or stuff. It's made by Ford and is popular in places like Asia and Australia.
Car
Toyota Hilux
The Toyota Hilux is a small truck that is very strong and can last a long time. People use it to carry things and drive in rough places.
Term
snorkels
Snorkels are tubes added to cars that let the engine breathe air from higher up, so the car can drive through water or dusty places without breaking.
Car
Toyota Land Cruiser
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a very strong and tough big car that can drive anywhere, even on rough and difficult roads. People trust it to last a long time and handle hard trips.
Car
Ford Excursion
The Ford Excursion is a very big car that can carry lots of people and things. It’s strong and good for towing but uses a lot of gas.
Concept
Barrett Jackson
Barrett-Jackson is a big car auction where people buy and sell special and old cars. It's like a big car sale event for collectors.
Car
G-Class Gwagon
The G-Class is a fancy, strong car that looks square and can drive on rough roads. Many people buy it because it looks cool and is very comfortable inside.
Car
Mercedes-Benz G-Class
The Mercedes G-Wagon is a fancy SUV that looks like a box and can drive on rough roads. Many people like it because it looks cool and is very strong.
Concept
golf cart
A golf cart is a tiny car used mostly on golf courses to move people and their clubs around. It goes slower than normal cars and is smaller.
Car
Bentley Continental
The Bentley Continental is a very fancy and fast car that is also very comfortable inside. People like it because it looks great and drives smoothly.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Corvette C8 is a fast sports car made by Chevrolet. It has its engine behind the seats, which helps it drive better and faster.
Concept
market glut
A market glut means there are too many of the same kind of car for sale at once, so the price usually goes down because buyers have lots of choices.
Car
Chevrolet Blazer
The Chevrolet Blazer is a type of SUV that people liked a lot in the past. Older versions are popular now because they look cool and can be fixed up or used for everyday driving.
Concept
luxury cars
Luxury cars are fancy cars that have nicer features and more comfort than regular cars. Older luxury cars like old Mercedes are becoming popular again because people like their style and quality.
Term
super cars
Super cars are very fast and fancy cars that cost a lot of money. People like them because they look cool and go really fast.
Car
Chevrolet Nova
The Chevrolet Nova is an older car made by Chevrolet that was popular a long time ago. People sometimes fix them up or use them for fun.
Concept
Ringbrothers
Ringbrothers is a company that makes very special and fancy custom cars. They take old cars and make them look and perform much better.
Brand
Tesla
Tesla is a company that makes electric cars and lets other companies use some of its software to help their cars work better.
Term
key fob
A key fob is a little remote that lets you open your car or even make it move without being inside it.
Car
Hyundai Palisade
The Hyundai Palisade is a big family car with lots of space and nice gadgets inside. It’s comfortable to drive and doesn’t cost as much as some fancy cars.
Brand
Honda
Honda is a company that makes cars and motorcycles that many people trust for everyday use.
LIVE
why are you already laughing? I haven't even said the joke! I know! I can just picture you!
This is Heart Park and brought to you by Right Honored and Right Toyota and Scott
Still Arizona. I am your host Jay Finning, recording from my home studio here in Gilbert,
Arizona. Coming up on today's show, Catherine Cox is in studio. I should have called her Cat.
Cat Cox is in studio as I recap my as promised Costa Rica trip. She spent some time in Costa
Rica in the past. I lured her in here with coffee beans. Also, Ford has recalled 4.4 million vehicles.
It sounds like a lot, but it shouldn't come as a surprise for a company that sells
well over a million vehicles a year. Taking a look over here, according to this, cbsnews.com,
the Ford F Super Duty from 2022 to 2026, 1.1 million vehicles. They sell over a million
Ford F-150s a year as it is every calendar year. Other vehicles on this list, the e-transit,
the navigator, the expedition. It's funny because it says Ford Lincoln Navigator and I never really
thought about it that way. Like we know Ford makes Lincoln, but everyone says Ford Expedition
Lincoln Navigator. Speaking of the expedition, it comes in in the next slot, followed by the
Ford Maverick, the Ford Ranger, and last but not least, just the run of the mill Ford F-150
2.297 million from 2021 to 2026. Coming up after this word from Spark Forge, Cat Cox.
If you're on a business and you're tired of juggling tools, chasing logins, and constantly
feeling like the tech side of things is heavier than it should be, this might hit close to home.
That tech fatigue usually shows up as an outdated website, reviews slipping through the cracks,
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Spark Forge is just to take that weight off. It handles the tech behind the scenes, helps
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see if it makes things easier, no pitch, no pressure, just a real conversation about what's
working, what's broken, and what you can simplify. So head over to getsparkforge.ai ford slash hard
parking to get started. Cat Cox. Welcome officially to hard parking studios in the physical nature
because you've been a big supporter of the show from day one. I feel like we've done this before.
Doesn't it seem weird? It's like deja vu. It's so weird, deja vu-ish. But we're enjoying some,
you picked out some Blenton's gold. Yep, love it, very good. Tasty. Good choice, our ice is already
melted by now. And I'm way further along than you are. It's all right, there's plenty more where
that came from. But you texted me and said, hey, when did you want me to come over and do the podcast
episode? And you said, I'm on the plane. I'm sitting on the plane on my way to Costa Rica. And
instead of saying, have a great time, text me when you get back. You said, get me some coffee.
Get me some coffee. Whatever it takes. So, you know, we made a note to pick you up some coffee.
No. Well, I bought the bag and I'm like, should I buy like 15 bags?
One time, Yvette bought coffee in Michigan because there's this place up there called
Horrocks and Horrocks has her coffee and we used to always get their toasted coconut.
Ooh, that sounds good. And one time she packed her suitcase full of that and they
stopped it at TSA and wouldn't let her do it. Okay, travel story real quick. I went to Alaska
for a day, one day flew into Anchorage. We drove to the sausage factory thing, picked up a bunch of the
different sausages, some fish, just been stuff, had ice packs for one of our bags and just like
put it all in one suitcase and took it back and they stopped us at TSA and they're like,
what is in your bag? And we're like, we, they're like, how long have you been here? It's like,
not even 24 hours. Can we go now? Did they let you go? Because usually they let stuff through.
Yeah, they opened it up and looked and made sure that that was literally all we had in there and
I'm like, they're like, do you have any clothes? And we're like, we have a like little like,
like a little backpack. Hello, 24 hours. I'm like, I may be a woman, but I'm not bringing
a full on suitcase for an overnighter. So I went to Costa Rica and I have a feeling you've been
to Costa Rica before. Yep. When I went to Costa Rica, this several years ago, and it was, there was a
huge diverse, like, well, first of all, the land, right? You have this very wealthy shopping center
and then like, basically across the street, all these small crammed together houses and everything,
the disparity in income was just incredible. They had people like patrolling outside of
office buildings with machine guns to make sure. No kidding. Yeah, to make sure people weren't going
inside, you know, like, but this is like also downtown in the in the capital too. So there's
San Jose. I've heard San Jose is like, not where you really want to be. It is not. We also ended
up because as we the hotel we stayed at for it was for work. And so the hotel that we were at
looked out over the volcano and we saw it starts smoking and everything. And we're like,
wonder if we're going to get out of here. And we ended up because so many people were trying to get
out. We ended up driving across like we rented a car and drove all the way across to Liberia
and flew out of Liberia. So, you know, Liberia, Costa Rica.
Liberia in the Guanacosta province. That's actually what we ended up doing. We flew,
we didn't go to San Jose at all. We flew into Liberia airport, which is a little smaller. Yes,
it is. And we drove to our first location and then we drove to our second location.
Oh, wow. Yeah. But, you know, so we get there on and that's also one thing I noticed too was
there's no like middle, right? And everything is either low income or perceived high income,
right? Because there's a lot of people that move there from other countries.
Honestly, there's a lot of government high income too. There's a lot of government
high income there too. But it was, I chronicled it. I make notes because it all starts with
the rental car, right? I love your rental car reviews. The rare times I do them,
but we rented a Suzuki Jimny, which I had no idea. In fact, I could just pull it up on my
computer here probably and show you what the GMC Jimny looks like. I want to say GMC because
it's a Jimmy and you're like, no, that's not it. It is interesting when you go to another country
and they have a vehicle that looks similar to something, but it's named something totally
different. Oh, yeah. Nice. So it almost looks like a little Bronco. It does. And they had
little Broncos there too. But you know, it's like, okay, you're going to Costa Rica. Who do you rent
from? And Google gives you this list of companies you've never heard of.
Correct. And the ones that I was looking for, I guess they're not really big around Liberia.
They must be all in St. Jose. So everyone was out of cars or not available. Plus this was like
a week before we got there. Yeah, yeah. You know, in the middle of their, or the beginning of their
high season. High season, yep. But we ended up getting the four door version or five door.
And we needed that space because the back with our two full size suitcases,
you had to put the seats down. You had to drop at least one of the seats. And then we have
backpacks that are always stuffed. Right, right. Because our laptop or whatever else
that works stuff. So ahead, we'd got the two-seater. There's like, there's no way.
And then we got the gas version versus the diesel version. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But what we
didn't know is in Costa Rica, you can't pump your own gas. You just pull up the station. So I think
Oregon. Oregon's that way too. Is the only one. Yeah. I think we have one state, maybe two states
that do that. And that's it. I know Oregon is that way because I made a trip there to
ski at Mount Bachelor. So recently or just a long time ago? Not recently. Oh, you don't ski anymore?
No. So that wanted to go. So in January, for Geo Lean's birthday, they wanted to go to Flagstaff.
And so he did with the fam. And if that's like, I want to learn how to snowboard, I go, I don't want
no part of that. We've never done it. I am not starting now. We're talking late 40s, in my case,
50 now. Ain't no way. Last time we even touched snow outside of going on inner tubes. Right. We
went skiing and that was 13 years ago in Michigan. And that was it. That was it. So you want to
transition from that to learning how to snowboard, pushing 50, hard pass. Fortunately, they were
sold out for the day. The tickets were so expensive, it didn't make any sense. It's like 150 or 175
per person. You have all the little kids, doesn't make any sense. And so we just did the inner tubing
thing and we had a lot of fun. Yeah. That's good. And especially out there, Flagstaff doesn't have a
lot of beginner slopes. They have like a few. Like maybe two, I think. But all the rest of them are
the bunny hills, whatever they call them. Yeah, I went to school there. So I was on that mountain
a lot. And it's mostly blue, black, triple, triple, you know, oh, how they color coat them. Yeah.
Have you seen one battle after another? That's the newest movie. It's got Venetia de Toro.
Oh, Leonardo. Leonardo DiCaprio? Yeah, so it has Leonardo DiCaprio in it. It's got Venetia de Toro.
It's worth checking out. Do you watch it on the plane? On the plane, yeah, because I always
talk about movies I watch on the plane. Now, do you watch them on your phone or do you have an
iPad? It's Southwest, so you have to watch it on the phone or something else. I didn't know if you had
an iPad or no. I watch it on here. But it's kind of glorifying maybe the Antifa way of life.
Yeah, so Leonardo, his character, he's part of like a resistance group and they start off doing
all their crazy shit. Sean Penn's in the movie. Oh my gosh. Yeah, when was the last time he was in
a movie? I don't know. But he plays like the... Craziest person on the... Antagonist. So basically,
he's like the captain or corporal of the, I'm going to call it ICE, because the whole movie,
they walk around, they have Sheriff on there, but I'm like, I don't even say police. We all know
what it is. It's just the ICE or Customs or something like that, but it starts off at like
an immigrant camp. Of course, like a detention detainment center. They free them all.
But the thing that's so unrealistic about it now that that's like front and center in our news,
this isn't a political take at all. It's just observation, because a lot of the movies,
they try to mimic reality to where you can watch it and be like, okay, that could totally happen.
So him and his group, he's got a mask on, which is pretty accurate, but the lead girl of their
group doesn't have a face mask on or anything. So they're just walking in front of all the cameras.
But she's like, look at my face. I'm like, ain't no way these people are doing this
with a lot covering their face. But that whole thing, which is, so it took me a while to kind of
get into the movie, like trying to set my bias aside of like, this is bullshit and this is what's
going on right now. And you're trying to over glorify, overthrowing the man. But then it kind of
got into the movie. And kind of a long story short, you don't get away with bullshit forever.
Right. So Sean Penn's character who gets wronged in the very beginning gets a tip and does his
revenge. And so they start hunting these people down. Oh, no. But in the crux of it is de Caprio's
character. It's been 16 years since the opening scene. And he's kind of fell off. He's a pothead.
He's got a little, he's got a daughter he's trying to raise. She probably thinks her dad's
crazy because he's like, Hey, one day, you know, this is our system. One day they're going to come
for us. One day, like the John Connor, Sarah Connor thing, right? And so of course they come.
And then from that point, like Benicio does horos, his daughter's sensei at the karate thing.
And he's got his own thing going on. So it becomes like this whole literally one battle
after another to where it's just like this super silly shit. And you throw into Caprio's character
just he's a mess. He's a paranoid mess. He's got the sunglasses on. Like you laugh at him.
Like he is just dumb. But you root for him because you can identify. This guy's got to get his
shit together. So at the end of the day, it's kind of a super wonky. This happens, this happens,
chain reaction, circumstance. You know, I hit, I hit you with the golf cart and I didn't realize
that you were a drug lord type of deal. And then I run over there and then the other guy from the
beginning of the movie ends up killing me type of deal. So it's a lot of that. Yeah. And in the
end, it's kind of a fun movie. Yeah. You know, so if you ever get a chance to watch it, it's worth
to watch it. Cool. You know, suspend your disbelief because there's a lot of dumb shit that
happens. Yeah, right. That happens a lot with movies. I mean, it does. But even if that was
times where you have to just go, okay, yeah. Well, we watched it together. That's not how it would
really go. But yeah, we watched it together, like on our own phones. You know, I asked her
because she's like pro one thing and I'm not, you know, we couldn't be any more opposite on some
of these points. Yes. But even she was like, I don't know, it was kind of cool, but there was
just a lot of dumb shit in that movie. And I was like, yeah, right. Like, why would you do that?
Why would you? Yeah, you know, we wouldn't. There's a robbery scene where they all
jump into their different cars and they're just flooring it, crashing through cars and
traffic. I'm like, no, you, you get out of the way and you drive like a normal person.
Yeah, you blend in, you don't get the Ferrari and try to. That's what they were doing. Every
single car escaping is like literally ramming through all these other cars. I'm like, if they
didn't know who you were, you just brought attention to yourself. Exactly. Exactly. So just sell
each other. It's not how they, you know, like if you think about it, like even with true crime,
that's almost how like it's funny when you listen to how many of the serial killers,
because of course there was a ton of them in the seventies and eighties, because they didn't have
cameras everywhere. They didn't have DNA, you know, they're, they got away with a lot,
but how many of them got caught for stupid things like tail lights being out or, you know,
registration not up to date on their, you know, on their car or whatever. And I mean,
just so many little things. And it's like, yeah, like good thing you're dumb.
Yeah, they run their prints. They're like, holy shit, these fingerprints are linked to like
32 missing persons, you know? Yeah, yeah. That whole segue, I don't think we landed yet.
So we get the rental car and it's about a three hour drive to the resort that we're staying at,
which is up in one of the other volcanoes, because I guess there's 400 volcanoes that
make up Costa Rica. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Which is why they have so much good coffee.
Yeah, because they've got excellent soil and they have the elevation.
And honestly, I don't know about now, but even back when I went there, they were really good
about the environment, like making sure that their environment was, you know, self-sustaining.
Very much so. Very much so. Energy, you know, waste, all of that. They were very, very good
about that. And, you know, you just became very aware of all of this. So they don't have big
industry. No. But it is small, but the counter of it is they're able to generate like 98% of their
own energy is reusable. But if all the tourism stopped. Oh yeah, no, definitely tourism.
Yeah, they would need to have industry there to continue and then you get all the pollution
and all that kind of stuff. Got a lot of notes about the Jimny over here. I wasn't very happy
with it at first. You're like, it sucks. So we bought a tequila. They said, when you go there,
go to the duty free shop. That's where your best shopping is. And so that's what we did.
So we bought her vodka that she always gets. Nice. And I bought some tequila and we bought some
of the actually just downstairs. She's like, Hey, have you ever had Elijah Craig?
We went through a bottle in like three days. She said she loves it.
Loves it. Loves it. And we, you know, what's funny is we called it tea time.
So I would take it and I would pour it into, you know, the little coffee cups that give you
like the little espresso cups in the hotel room sometimes. And so I just put a little bit of
Elijah Craig bourbon in there and then we'd be like, cheers, cheers. So, um, so anyway,
we get to this resort and it is the magic mountain. So it's called magic. Yeah. Okay. So
look, magic, listen, magic mountain resort, we decided no more resorts or hotels with magic
anything. Okay. I'm sure magic kingdom is probably good. It better be for the money.
If you're going to pay that much. Yeah. But what happened with this place is
I bet you it, it was probably really good when they built it probably in 1986 or 87.
Yeah. I was going to say in the 80s. Yep. Cause it had some modern like light switches,
like little things you can swap out where I'm like, these light switches like are too new
for the rest of the room, for the rest of the room. Cause it was cool because it had the big,
it had the big jacuzzi in it. Oh wow. In the room. Uh huh. And then it had the nice shower.
And then we had a beautiful view of a volcano, our now, like it was right there. Yes. We couldn't
see it because it was raining the whole time, like off and on the, for the two and a half days
we were there, but you can see like the part of it. And then the water in the shower wouldn't get hot.
Oh. Yeah. Yeah. So it was really cold. I took one shower. Actually I took two showers for those
two and a half days we were there. That's like, really? That's disgusting. But we, yeah, we,
we took the shower and I'm like, it wouldn't even really get lukewarm. It just was cold. Yeah. Yeah,
which sucks. So we called the office and it's like, Hey, the shower won't get warm.
And I forgot there was some other issue we couldn't get figured out because they were on solar and
there was no sun or maybe, but what we ended up doing is we booked a couple's massage,
which we've never done before. And that was interesting. And then came with this whole coffee,
of course, coffee ground rubbed down exfoliation. Nice. And the woman's like, you know,
they're talking Spanish and you bet it's like, well, she said that you should probably take
your underpants off because it's going to stain your, your drawers if you don't. And I'm like,
it's not the first time my drawers have been stained, you know, but like, I'm not gonna.
You don't get naked for a massage. I've never had a full body massage. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh.
I'm like, close off. Yeah. I go, I, I get a massage like once a month, a therapeutic
massage up the street, but that doesn't require, it's my back. Yeah. Right. You know. So for me,
it's different. It's like new, right? I'm like, yeah, no, not. Yeah. I mean, three women in the
room. Also don't have a problem with nudity. Three women in the room with me, you know,
I should want to take my clothes off. I know, right? What's wrong with you?
Are you shy? Apparently. But then so we got done with that and they're like, okay,
you obviously wash all that shit off you. So you get in the shower and the shower was so piping
hot. And I'm like, can we just come here again? It's like my room is literally like 12 seconds
that way. Like, you know, and so that shower and the one other shower that I took were the two
showers that I took. Actually, I did take a third shower and it was kind of like luke warm
out in and out. Yeah. Which is very annoying. But when we were there, we didn't do the
sloth tours, but we did still see sloths. Oh, I bet. Yeah, we did a we did a an ATV tour,
which is cool. That sounds fun. Yep. And then they pointed out two or three sloths,
because it's not like they were here five minutes ago. They're not going anywhere fast. So it's
like iguanas everywhere. The king iguana when I went to Liberia. Yeah, we were walking along
the beach and that this this thing was so we saw one of those when we were at the at the JW
from head to tail. Yeah, like, I mean, you know, right? But we did the ATV tour, which is really fun.
We went to some of the hot springs, which is obviously their thing there. Yeah. And these are
these are bodies of water that are heated naturally from the volcano from all the volcanoes around.
Yeah, we went to one called Baldy Hot Springs and Resort. We did a day pass there. Although we
only we were there for like three hours at night. We didn't know what we're gonna do. Well, we've
got three hours till they close. I go, well, let's go there anyway. So we did it. And they have 25
pools. Most of them are connected. I guess they're all somewhat connected, right? Right. But some
of them have steps that connect to the next one lower. Some of them have waterfalls. Oh, nice.
You can in their lit up with LEDs, a couple of them have bars you can walk up to or swim up to.
The water's not deep enough where you can swim, swim, right, but you can wade up to it. It's,
it's, you know, probably waste mid stomach at the deepest. But the water is warm. It was great.
So you order your drink and you get under the waterfall and it's like this is like the dream
shower head. The dream shower head. Other shower. And as you get as you get closer to the top,
the water naturally gets hotter. So then you're in like real hot tub territory and it is fucking
fantastic. And your muscles are just like, because apparently the water has like these natural
chemicals in it. But it was weird. It was, it was weird just to not smell sulfur and to not smell
chlorine, right? You know, obviously chlorine from hot tubs, right? No, but you have that mineral
smell. Like if you drink wine, like, well, maybe you don't make sure they got drink one.
You know that mineral. Yeah, but it didn't even have any of that. Oh, really? Yeah,
there was like no smell. And it could be because it was raining off it on. Oh, that could be. Yeah.
So we had our raincoats and I had my backpack stuffed in the raincoat so I can carry it and
just set it down to the next pool, you know, because we weren't staying there. So we couldn't
get the lockers. Right. Right. But we could rent the towels. But that was really cool. They had a
natural sauna in there as well. So you kind of go into like this little cave area and it's just
like steam everywhere in the water and there was hot as fuck. But you can't get in it, but you can
get like mid next to it, mid calf, mid calf deep in it or something like that. Wow. And that was
cool. And we had talked about maybe going back before we went back down the mountain, but we
didn't, but that was still good. And then we went on eight and we did the, you did what you always
have to do with the coffee and chocolate tour. Yes. Yes. And we made our own chocolate. Oh, fun.
Which is really cool. So they talked to the whole process. I saw a toucan there and I took
a photo of that. It's so cool. I'm like, is that a toucan? I know. It's like, what else would it
be? It's so weird because it's like monkeys are just going across the road and stuff. So at this
point we hadn't seen any monkeys yet. You hadn't? Not up where we were at. That later on we did.
Okay. And that was super cool. It's just so wild because you're just like, is that it? It's funny
because our tour guide's name was Ezekiel, which is obviously Zeke's name, our grandson. Right. So
you're not going to forget that. Right. Really cool kid too. But what we did was we took the
cocoa beans. How big are they? Like before you strip them down and everything? The beans themselves
are about the size of a nickel. If you were to take a nickel as an oval. Yeah. Did you get them
in the pods though? So what it is, is yeah. So he took them on the tour and you, you know,
you crack it and open it up. And I've seen it before in Dominican. But what a lot of people
don't realize and why would you, when they first open it up, you have the cocoa bean and it's
surrounded by like this, this white custard. Yeah. And it's delicious. Is it? It's almost
tastes almost like a mango-y. Oh, yeah. So everyone grabs a piece and you eat, but you don't,
you know, you suck all that stuff off of it. And what's left is you can throw it in the ground.
It'll grow a new tree or they take it and they dry it off. And it's got like five or six layers
to it. So it's like this multi step process. They ferment it for a few weeks and then they do this
other thing with it and this other thing with it. And then they have the bean itself and you can
eat that. Just eat it. You can. It's like baker's chocolate with no sugar. Oh yeah, you don't want
to, but you could. So we all took a bite of it, you know, and you could throw it down and whatnot.
But then when we got to the last station, he had the old school grinder and then you put the cocoa
beans in there and we all took turns at grinding it. It kind of grinds it out into this like
chocolatey paste, which is really cool. Yeah. And then we all took some of that and put it on a plate.
And then he laid out all these ingredients in front of us that typically go into chocolate,
as he tells us the story of chocolate. Well, he's got, because they grow all that,
they're on the plantation too. So they have like a vanilla plant there and everything.
So he had vanilla in a bottle. They had like chili, chili powder. Oh yeah, I love their,
obviously, their chocolate chili is so good. Cain sugar. So it was brown, some salt. They had
obviously powdered milk. They had probably nine things and you can just kind of mix and match
what you want. And that's how they made the first chocolates. Right. And so we sit there and made
the chocolates in our hand. It was really weird. You know, it's really weird texture. Yeah. Kind
of grainy because it's not like you were grinding it. Yeah, right. But vet has hers.
Like we have them here and they're hard as a rock now. Yeah. But the grandkids had some and they
liked it. And my mother-in-law likes it because I was gonna throw it away. I'm like, okay,
everyone's had a taste of it. I'm just happy with the Hershey bar. Like this shit. I don't
like Hershey bar. I mean, they're okay. Historically, this is a cool thing that we made, but this
is a fucking rock right now. And I'm never going to eat this thing. But that was a lot of fun.
I don't know. I mean, this is, I mean, this is all sweat equity. Like there's no bullshit in
that. Like I put that together. There's no preservatives in that thing. Love that though.
Yes, it was cool. And then so they have a river up there that's known to be like a natural hot
river. We were going to stop at it on the way back down. It's a free hot river. I mean, how
cool is that? I know, right? But as you come around the corner and you see all the cars
lined up on the side of the road, like Salt River, I'm like, I think we were supposed to turn back
there. Plus it's still kind of drizzling outside. It's already going to take us four and a half
hours to get to the JW down at Guanacoste, Tamarindo area. That's where it was. And so we just kept
rolling. Yeah. And that's when we discovered that the roads in Costa Rica can be different.
Yes. As you know. So you go from pavement and it says, take a right here and I go,
oh, okay. It says your option, you know, Waze is like optional, right? It's like kind of similar
ETA. I was going to ask if you used Waze. That's the first time. We were told to use Waze. Yes.
And it's the first time that I ever heard about it because like in, like I said, it was years ago
and I'd never heard of it before. So I downloaded it because that's what they told us to. You should
use Waze. Waze is, you know, the best one. And so we downloaded it. It was all in Spanish and it
took me forever, even here in the United States to get it to stop reverting back to the Spanish.
That's funny. Yeah. I'm like a Waze. I don't know what the levels are like a Waze king or
something because I've been using Waze for years. I have been too. I love it. I actually use it in
my car now, even though it doesn't come up on my HUD, the Apple, what maps will. So if I'm going
someplace really, really new, I'll, you know, maybe put it in Apple Maps, but I usually have my
ways up because I, well, yeah, because even you know where you're going. Yeah. And you can pick
your own, you know, but it tells you the cops, plus all the people tell you. Well, I was going to say
like that used to be like the Waze's, that was her thing. And then they lost eventually their
patent like expired. And now all of them do that Google in Apple. Yeah. But Waze is still like
way better. Yeah. I think people that were really, because I think the people that really like Waze
are also contributors. You know what I mean? Like there, if you use it, you use it. You don't just
use it for the map. You know, you add the, you know, Hey, there was an accident here or whatever.
I had. Yeah. Yeah. And you can pick all the different voices and icons.
Yep. I actually have a Sonic. I have a Sonic the Hedgehog car. Oh, cool. I had a dragon.
You had a dragon. Trying to think what else I used to use. I think I had C3PO as a voice on
their voice. It was like how to train your dragon guy. Or Darth Vader. No, I had Arnold on there,
the Terminator on there before. Oh, did you? But it took us like probably five hours to drive.
Oh, yeah. From the Magic Resort to JW. And if there's an accident, it's like, they're narrow.
They're, you know. Yeah, they're all two lanes. Sometimes on the main interstate,
it's probably four to six lanes. Yeah, you can get out. Yeah. But not often. And in town?
No, in town, it's two lanes always, right? And not only that, but there's like,
there's lights and signs and stuff, but there's no rules. Exactly. If people are banned, which we...
Never mind. Yeah. So we're driving and it's like, take a right and paint this for the listeners
and the viewers. You're on a farm road. It's just the road. And that was the craziest thing.
And the fact that we were in the Suzuki, I'm like, there's no way. There is no way in any other car.
But so everybody there has, you know, there's a few pedestrian vehicles. And I don't know,
like in San Jose, there's probably more because you're like in the city. Right. But it took us a
while. You're gonna finish off your giant, your booze. Yeah, look at that. It took us a while.
But once we got to JW, it was a whole different world. And we're actually... I haven't been there.
So one of the main roads was, of course, closed. And so we're going and this road, we noticed that
on the sides of the road, it was cut up probably 28 to 36 inches on both sides.
And the road was all fucked up, but he's got the tour buses and everybody like driving down this
road and the work trucks. And then once we get off the road, we look to the left and we notice
the normal road that's under construction is closed. So I guess they're trying to fix it or build it
or something. And everybody's going down this... Everybody. Wild road. But as soon as we emerge,
it's like, okay, JW. Oh, we're here. Although you're not here, you're just on the outskirts of
like the six kilometer thing. Right. So when we pull through the security check, I'm driving down
this road and it's like, oh, monkey. He's like, what? So she spotted them. So we turned around and
they were just, as you know, they're in the trees and on the telephone wires and stuff like that.
They even have across the bigger roads, they have those bridges for them to go across.
Oh yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So they're not getting hit by cars. They're smart enough too.
Oh yeah. Yeah. It's funny because the monkey crossing sign looks like a,
looks like a brontosaurus. I looked at it and I go, oh, look, dinosaur crossing.
I know. It's like, what is, what is that? Because the monkey is like way over here on the sign.
And you see this long tail over here, not to be confused with those other weird things that
they have there. Oh, what? They're like those weird, like... Not the bird. No, those weird rodent,
like, they're very, they're very posse and racoonish and the signs for them crossing the
street are everywhere. And actually when we're up in, in the Arenal Mountains coming down,
we saw like eight or nine of them on the side of the road. Oh, that's a cut of Monday.
Yeah. Thanks. The cut of Mondays. Yeah. So they had their cut of Mondays everywhere.
Yeah. Those things are great. I actually... They're not afraid of people. No, they're not.
That's the craziest. I got some good claws on them though. Oh, that's why they're not afraid.
Yeah. They'll fuck you up. Yeah, they can fuck you up. I mean, that one right there looks like
a rocket raccoon right here. Yeah, that one's cute as hell. But yeah, those are weird. They're
everywhere. But so we, we, we point out the monkeys, take videos of them, and then we go to the resort
and we go to like these different beaches. And we went to one called Playa Concha, which is,
it's all shells. And the thought is, well, it doesn't hurt your feet. And the answer is no,
because there's a like, they're like, they've been smashed into so many small pieces.
And they're surrounded from all the water. Exactly. From the water and the abrasion against
each other. Exactly. And that made for like one of the best... Actually, we ended up going there
twice, because in the second time, we rented one of their 10 by 10 pop-ups for 40 bucks a day,
because we were already severely sunburned from the first time. Of course. Arizona is getting
their shit burned. I know. What's up with that? Went to the tide pools behind the hotel, and there
was there was hermit crabs everywhere. I've never seen so many hermit crabs. And I was geeking
out over it because I'm a nerd at the end of the day. You know, I'm like, oh, look at all the hermit
crabs. But the dollar doesn't stretch as far as it used to. Yeah. A lot of the stuff to me was
probably about 75 to 80% which you're going to expect to spend here. Did you, did you exchange
your money or did you keep your... We didn't and it wouldn't have mattered. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was
just curious. We had an app to do it. And we know that everyone there... Never do it at the airport.
Yeah, never do it at the airport because they charge. Yeah. So that, through her employer,
if we do it ahead of time, they'll change it for her. But we didn't even think about it.
That's the same bank that I have and they do it for me, you know, same thing. Like, they'll do it.
If you do it ahead of time, they'll exchange your money because I've exchanged money there for,
it didn't cost me any, there's no fee for me to have. Well, our January was so crazy
into our February where every weekend we had something going on. So it was probably two
days before we left, I go, do you think we should take out money and change it? She goes,
I don't know. The only reason I asked is because I literally, I saved some of my Costa Rican money
because it is so beautiful, like so beautiful. Sharks on it and they have like all kinds of
different animals and everything. I mean, it's just the money itself is beautiful. It's like
certain ones are blue and pink and green. I mean, they're just, it's just gorgeous. And I was like,
I don't want to spend that long and keep it. Right. Yeah. We're like, we went to the, like the,
it's not really the gas station, but you know, every beach area has like those stores, like
convenience stores, you can walk in and almost like the ABC stores in Hawaii. Yeah, exactly.
We're really small. And so you can buy a can of beer for like two dollars, two USD. So that's
about the same, you know, 249, you know, even going out to eat, you know, you get like a rib eye
and it's 38 to 42 USD. Oh, really? Which is about average for a rib eye. Yeah. And then the really
nice ones, it's going to cost more 50 bucks. But I mean, here it does too. Exactly. It's weird
because I had steak almost every day. The event makes fun of me, but it's like, when you look at
it manually, it feels like they don't really have their own food. Yeah, it's mostly beef too.
I, we went to one of the, like, I think it was a Brazilian, you know, like the,
whatever, where you just like the Brazilian steak houses, that's what it is. Yeah. And it's just
like, oh, can I have some meat with my meat please? I'm down with it, but that'll get your
gurd, man. That'll have you second guessing yourself about 12. I'll have you having about
12 pillows behind you. How am I going to just sit up for a night? Yeah, between that and the iced
tea that we're drinking, aka the bourbon, the bourbon, the Elijah Craig, but that was gone by
the time we got there. Oh, but I go, let me go way back. So we buy this, this bottle of tequila,
and they don't have any good tequila, which is of course, right? And I know what the good tequila
is and the shit tequila, but as far as mixing hemodore and hornitos is good to like make a
margarita with. So I figured, sure, if it's good for that, it's good for me. I'm not making any
margaritas, but let me buy some tequila. We bought the hemodore and you know, in Mexico,
they have those special tops, the pain in the ass tops. I could not get the top off. I had to wait
until we got to JW because it's got the metal around it and it's got the thing.
And in order for you to get the thing off the thing, you have to cut it and we had nothing to
cut it with. And so that's why we drank so much Elijah Craig because we couldn't get the tequila
open. So then finally, when we got to JW, I got the I got the top of the tequila thing off
and drink. I was like, this isn't really good. So because you've been spoiled. Yeah. And so at
that point, I think by the time we left, there were still three quarters of a bottle of the
hemodore left because we were drinking once we got done with Elijah Craig, we were drinking her
Tito's and stuff. And I don't really like Tito's, but I'll take it. And then I was drinking a lot
of like their beers at Imperial, which is their beer. So I was buying Imperials drinking Imperials.
And then when you go out, you go to the beach is like, are you hungry? Yeah,
let's go up to the, to the restaurant. And of course you're going to order. Order a drink. Of
course. Of course. You know, so your backpack's full of drinks, but you're still going to order
and spend money on a beer there. So of course, of course. But we went to, so we went to Playa
Concha twice. We went to a place called Playa Minas. And that's known for sea turtles. I was
just going to say the turtles. That's a turtle one. And but we didn't see any, but we saw the tracks.
Well, I saw the tracks because if that, you know, she's your typical, I love the beach,
I love the waves. I'm just going to sit down and read a book and take a nap.
And me, I, I walked. You're like walking around looking for shit. Like those little jelly things,
you know, and I was like, what is that? Should I touch it? Probably not. But there are these,
you know, the tiny jelly things. And then I hear this noise and start kind of freaking out.
Like, is anybody else hearing this? Is it the waves crashing up and it's just echoing and it's
holler monkeys. Oh, but at the time I didn't know. Was it like getting evening or? Yeah,
it's just probably five 30. Yep. Yep. Yep. Go to the Phoenix Zoo anytime around that time.
You'll hear them. Yeah. But then we saw them the next day because we went on a bike tour.
And that's when we saw like a ton of monkeys and those, and the giant lizards. And they were like
right there, like the corner of this. You can just walk up to them. Yeah. Yeah. But we didn't,
fortunately in that area, they don't have the, what those white face ones that steal everybody's
shit. Yeah. Did you see anything else? Exciting? So we went to Playa Flamingo. Oh,
did you see any flamingos? No, which wasn't great. We went to Playa Tamarindo. So we've
realized Tamarindo is like, I have in my notes the gringo area. Yeah. We're like, oh, this is
where all the white people are. Like the whole town. Everybody lives there. All the, all the
expats are there, right? They are. Yeah, there's expats. That's what, that's what my, my best
friend Sizzik would always say. He calls expats. He says the expats love the Pacific side.
But yeah, to your point, one thing I noticed was you have, everywhere you go, they're trying to sell
real estate everywhere. And I'm looking at these elaborate drawings. I'm like, God, that's nice,
but this place is nothing but haves and have nots. And it feels a little weird. And maybe the people
there don't care. It's just what they're used to. But for people like us, it just feels a little
weird. It does. And then where we were staying in that area, that giant area that has the Marriott
in the back corner, there's a golf course and there's a lot of houses they're trying to sell.
And you could tell there's some like deep money houses in there. And it's like,
in fact, that weekend we were there, a famous Californian surfer who has a hotel there,
owns a hotel, was stabbed to death brutally in his house. So I mean, they have the crime.
It's very little. It's one of the five safest places. I think it comes in at number four.
But I'm like, oh, that's funny. Like some dude a town over just got robbed and stabbed like 50
times. I mean, but if you think about it, it's like an inside job, but probably. But I mean,
if you think about it, depending on how you treat others, but also if all you have is very
wealthy and not, there's no hope, right? If you're this far down, how are you going to get this far
up without anything in between or very little? I'm not saying there's nothing, but they just don't
have a huge middle class. And if they have it, it's not where we were. No, no. And it's not,
you don't have money guilt because like we're not rich. Right. And we could buy a house in Costa
Rica. I was looking at real estate. Yeah. But it's like, oh, and honestly, I mean, I'm going to keep
it 100 with you. We're driving around. I'm like, I can't take my car anywhere. Oh, no, no. So where
so wherever we were in the JW area, I told him that I go, I can drive the six kilometer circle.
That's it. I can't even leave because they're not finished with the one road and the other road.
There's no chance. Right. Like zero chance. Right. My Z would make it. And I heard the MDX would make
it. Yeah. You know, but no, I just, I would be trapped. It's so funny. But yeah, and they're
the, the sidewalks, right? Are really weird, at least in, in San Juan, they were really strange
because they would be like, probably because they get a lot of rain, right? So they'd have like
these really deep curves, but then they're like, you know what I mean? Like, it was like,
these giant ravines in between the road and the sidewalk. Yes. Yes. And you're just like,
with no guard rail. No. You're like, do I fall in as a, as a pedestrian or am I going to see a car
come creaning through here? And that's crazy because let me add this to you. Tell you this. So
the first night when we were driving up to Mount Aranal, walking, you know, it was dark. It got
dark and it was raining. So I'm in this rental car. And it's like going up the roads of South
Mountain or, you know, or Canyon Lake where it's just a bunch of blind curves, like 89A for those
of you familiar with Arizona and there's steep drop offs, no guard rails. Right. I was expecting
to see some shit, but I didn't. And you know, that's one thing I noticed because it's funny
because this little, well, I got the little Katamundi up here, Kodamundi, whatever it is,
Kodamundi. But when we had the Jimny up there, it's a very capable, but with the A-pillar was
so thick. Yeah. Like when I'm driving, I had a huge blind spot. I'm like, I had to kind of look
over from the middle or had to look through my driver's side just to see the corner because
of course that's the way I'm going and you can't see shit when you're going up the mountain
because you're driving on the normal side of the road. We are here. Correct. And so that's,
it was a constant blind spot and Yvette, poor Yvette, she was freaking the fuck out. Oh yeah.
That's how my mom used to be with curves. Like anything, like she was just like, no.
I'm shocked we didn't hit somebody. Like Jerome freaked my mom out. Yeah. But I mean, you,
but at night, you can't see the, the, the potholes that everybody else knows is there.
Right. And we had an idea. Where the locals know how to get around and everything. Yeah. We had an
idea when we rented the car because I've never had this happen before. They take you out there
and they do the condition report and they open the back door. This is your spare tire. This is
where your jacket is. And I'm looking at Yvette like, what the fuck did we get ourselves into?
Okay. You know, and then when I was renting at the counter, you know, the woman's like,
your third party insurance doesn't hold any merit here. Do you want to pick ours up for an
extra, I don't know, 30 bucks a day or something ridiculous? Yeah. Or if you say no, it's a $7,000
deductible. $7,000? Yeah. I go, um, no, I'm good. Okay. You know what? It's a $7,000. No, I'm good.
It's a $7,000. No, I'm good. Okay. Sign here. You don't want the $7,000. No, I'm good.
You know, but there were some times I was like,
maybe I should have signed that fucking thing. You know what I forgot to complain about?
Oh, no, what? Because people say, people say I'm a complainer.
Like it's a thing, I guess. I don't know. I don't think I'm a complainer, but people say I'm a
complainer. But when we're going up to that Magic Mountain resort, the resort, okay, if it had hot
water, not so bad. Nothing but old people there. Oh, really? Yeah. They eat those of the heat
does everywhere. In fact, the first night we went to their restaurant and they're like, well,
for two, well, it's going to be like an hour. You guys want the buffet. We're like, we don't want
the buffet. Okay, you sure? We don't want the buffet. We don't want the buffet. And you get
all these happy old people walking around the buffet and having their food, you know, I'm just
like looking at a new vet, like, you do realize you booked this, right? And then we went up there
for the breakfast and the breakfast was fine, but it's just old people everywhere. But the problem
with this place is when you pull in, so they have this giant parking area in the front next to the,
so they have the restaurant and then they have their security desk next to it, the security,
the parking security or whatever. Right. So then you pull in and you have like
the thing that, what's it called, like the covers the entrance basically, like every hotel, you
pull in the page, the person drop off area. Like where you pull up, yeah, yeah, valley. The valley
area, but just self parking. So that was it for parking. So there was probably nine spots on the
right, nine spots on the left, not really nine, maybe more like seven spots on the right, seven
spots on the left. And in the middle, there was like five spots, five or six spots, which we never
didn't have a place to park. Right. But the problem is if you were to park on the right side driving
up, you are prisoner to whoever's parked underneath that thing. So a lot of times there were tour buses
parked underneath there, giant buses. Yeah. You know, one time there was an ambulance and you just
have to sit in your car and wait. Because of all the old people. Probably. You just had to sit in
your car and wait and wait for them to move. And I'm like, this is such a dumb design. And
especially the area right in front of the, of the security kiosk tower building thingy
and right in front of the restaurant, there's plenty of parking. Right. They should make tour
buses park there. Right. It's not that far of a walk. Right. Right. It's literally right
there. But they're the old people. But they're the old people. You know, but it's like, this is,
this is so, this design is just so stupid. You know, it didn't hold us up too much, but it's,
you know, I'm just like, what is this? Like, why am I in the car if I'm having to wait?
Yeah. And then on, and then so we were there for Valentine's Day. So now, you know, again,
we're back to the first spot. And they decorated the whole place up with like hearts and stuff
for Valentine's Day. And they had like this, this red phone on the wall, which is probably
the emergency phone, like the bat phone. And then they put this, I'll show you a picture of
you're going to laugh your ass off. They had this, they made this big heart around it, you know,
because Valentine's Day and they handle this stuff. And they had the words, I just call
to say I love you instead of I just called to say I love you. I just called to say I love you.
I just called to say you love you. Yeah. So I had that on the J Travels Instagram.
I love it. Of course. But we got it. We had a good laugh on that. But let's see if I have anything
else here. Cars, they had Ford Everest, which is a lot like the Ford Explorer. Toyota Helix or
Hilux, I still haven't figured out what it is. I think it's Helix. Helix, Hilux. They're everywhere,
of course. They had snorkels on them. Land Cruiser Prados. And then the big, I call them
K cars, but they're too big. And you've seen them traveling in national, but Kia makes them all
their work trucks. Oh, yes. They look like the little, they look like the tiny K trucks, but
they're normal size. They're just they're 100%. We went to the Sabanero Steakhouse at JW, which
was really nice. Nice. Because of our status, we had breakfast, free breakfast, which was at one
of their restaurants. And then because we're gold lifetime gold, we got it came with like two
mimosas to every morning. Oh, nice. Yeah. So that was the great way to start the great breakfast
was great. You know, and before we left, it's like tea time, you know, until we ran out of tea.
It's our tea time. But one thing about Oh, I have a joke. Oh, this is a very inappropriate joke.
That's fine. Okay. You know, hey, so you think I haven't heard of you?
So one thing we learn what you already know, but the people watching or listening don't know
is that this isn't a joke. But Costa Rica has no military. They have no army. They're the country
of peace. And that was one of their agreements early on. But their protection comes from Nicaragua,
which is right there. So the Nicaraguan army and then a lot of the Nicaraguan people
work in Costa Rica. And in fact, at the JW, we had a lot of Nicaraguan people.
No joke there either. But my joke in all my infinite wisdom was Oh, Nicaragua. So
Oh, Nicaragua.
And I get on my little phone and I start writing my notes.
What do the Nicar, how do the Nicaraguans greet each other in the morning?
I don't know how. What's up, Nicar?
You are so bad.
What's up, Monica? Cheers.
That was my joke. Maybe that'll be the viral clip. Did your wife slap you?
She laughed. Oh, so but the last thing on Costa Rica was getting back to Liberia.
Yeah. I've learned to not trust ways because there's so many factors. Oh, you mean there?
Yeah. Oh, let me back up. So a lot of people that we met, you always weird, you meet people
two ways on vacation, right? You meet them on a tour in the hot tub. That's the only two ways.
That's it. Right? I mean, when you're on an excursion or in the hot tub, that's it.
Okay. Oh, so where are you from? So the JW, it had, there was a lot of kids there.
And it's not that we don't like kids because we're inundated with them all the time.
Yes. But it's like the thing you notice. I'm like, Jesus, God, there's kids freaking everywhere.
This must be a family resort. But a lot of resorts out of the country have like, okay,
this is the adult pool. Right. And then the adult hot tub. And this is the kid pool.
And this is the everybody. Yeah. There was no adult pool. Right. There was no adult hot tub.
Kids love hot tubs. Yeah. So the first night we're walking around like,
you want to get in the hot tub? And it's like, okay, there's like two adults and 12 kids in
that hot tub. You know, there's half a dozen teenagers in that hot tub because they have
nothing to do. Right. They're not drinking. Right. Their parents are whack because they
don't want to hang out with their parents. Right. They're just gonna chill in the hot tub.
Yeah. Makes sense. So one hot tub was lukewarm, unfortunately.
Because of all the little kids. And then one hot tub was decent,
which we didn't get into the decent hot tub the next night. But what we've discovered is
most of the people we met were Canadian. Oh, really? Yeah.
That makes sense. And when we're talking to the tour guide, he said that all the other
businesses like mostly American and then next Canadian and then next to the rest of the world.
But again, not to make this political, although when you say that, it becomes political. Of
course. But one of the guys in the hot tub, they're from Canada. And they were saying that
usually they go to Florida. Yeah. Yeah. They go, what, this year we came down here because
of Donald Trump. I'm like, Canada like didn't like the tariff thing at all. Yeah. But I'm like,
wait, is there a rule? And the fact that he said, yeah, there almost is. There isn't. But I fact
checked it. No, I didn't fact check him. No, but I never forgot. So I got, I looked up on
Gragas and said, is there any, and there's no, I understand the personal thing. But when people
say that, it's like, well, now there's a rule that maybe they tax them more or something. You know,
I just wanted to understand this statement, but it was like a personal thing. He's like,
fuck that guy. We're gonna have a Costa Rica instead. I'm like, oh, okay. So I don't care.
But I was just like, I was like, damn, is that why so many people are here? There's that. But
there's also the fact that with Canada, I mean, there was, there was a lot of
I'm gonna buy your country or take over your country or whatever the 51st state. Yeah. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I mean, as a Canadian, yes, like it didn't have to be a rule. Like, you're not taking
over our country. We don't want the country like the real time. We don't want Canada. But the people
are great. Yeah, I don't care about the politics. I don't live there. Super nice. Yeah. Super nice.
Every Canadian I've met, I've worked with because I used to work in Canada for a few months.
Worked in New Jersey for a few months. I have friends. Yeah. The New Jersey people are cool,
too. For a few years, I worked for New Jersey. I love my New Jersey and I don't know if that's
what they're called. But some of my actually some of my favorite relationships from everything
from what I do is for work are people in New Jersey. Yeah. You know, shout out to Rebecca
Kiefer. I don't know if you still listen to the podcast, but I think you do. And like,
she used to listen to this on Tuesdays when she would go for her walks. Oh, nice. Yeah. And I
know she checks in every once in a while, maybe she still does. Maybe she'll actually suit me
a text. That'd be nice. I heard what you said. I got a Christmas card from her. That's my dog.
But New Jersey is weird. But the people are great. But anyway, so you know, that's
something a lot of people we met are from Canada. Did you work in did you actually work in Eastern
or Western Canada? I worked an hour outside of Toronto. Oh, okay. Great. Yep. A big healthcare
system up there. And I don't, it must be the Blanton's. I mean, you've actually doubled up on
me. I know. Now your level of your second cup of Blanton's is about the level of your first.
But as you see downstairs, I have a lot of stuff to get through. You do. You do. In my
overstock in the closet here, I'll be happy to swing by and help you out with that. No, back
to ways. Yes. Oh yeah. So not trusting ways. Fortunately, our flight out of
Costa Rica was like 330. Okay. 340. Yeah. So we get up, have our breakfast, do our thing.
Waste tells you it's an hour and a half. I go ain't no way. I've seen that traffic.
It took us almost three hours to travel 49 miles. Yep. Because as it's great until you hit
traffic and then I don't know how it was in San Juan, but probably very similar. So we're stuck.
I did not drive the person that lived there did. And I swear every time I got in that vehicle,
I thought I was taking my life in my own hand. I was just like, we kind of were.
So I remember driving to the JW and seeing the traffic lights. I'm like, Oh, there's a light.
Anytime you see a traffic light at the end of a highway, you know, it's like a major issue.
Right. Right. As it gets into town. Yep. So we get stuck in this traffic.
And then I notice on ways the perpendicular traffic is also coming in. Yeah. Oh.
As our light turns green, there's traffic in front of them because there's another traffic light.
And so what's happening is these people are turning and then I noticed the people in my line.
Nobody's going. Well, exactly. What happened was people behind us and in front of us start
cutting into oncoming traffic and their shoulder. They're going the wrong way on their side of
their shoulder. And there's tourism vans doing it too. Oh yeah. It's crazy over there. I don't want
to be that American. And so we stayed in line. There's lines on the road. They're like guidelines.
That's how Dominican is. Yes, it is. Yeah. Like I didn't drive in the Dominican,
but I remember being in the tour bus and looking around like, Oh my God, these people are insane.
Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. But these people were driving up. And what would happen is they would
all drive up and just cut over and fuck your shit up. So the closer we got to the light,
like you ever do the thing where you're in traffic and you're like, okay, you're watching
the green light and you're like, okay, I'm about counting the cars. I'm about three lights,
three green lights away. Yep. The closer you get, the bigger that number got. And I'm watching my
ETA to the airport also increase. Oh no. You're like, uh, I need to be somewhere. Right. And so
the closer you get to that light, it's like, Oh my God, these motherfuckers. So then it would be one
car instead of six cars. And then there's a turn lane, but people get in the turn lane and then
yep. And even on the other side of the light, they were going on oncoming traffic or getting in
the other shoulder in front of businesses and driving up. And it was just once we cleared that,
it was good. But that section, like we weren't in any danger of missing our flight because,
thank God, you know, we left with three and a half hours of spare and we got there with 45 minutes
of spare. Wow. Because we got to the rental car place, you drop your car off and then you have
to stand in that line and wait for the shuttle. Oh, oh, to get to the airport. So you start doing
the same thing. I'm like, all right, we're about two shuttles away from this thing. Of course,
we got into the next shuttle and that's like sitting on my lap, but fortunately the airport's
like two miles away, which is great. But yeah, that was, but before we even landed, she was already
looking for rentals there for like the, taking the whole family back. Like to go for a longer
vacation. But I think what we would do, we were there for a week, which is perfect, right?
Because we both agreed like I love traveling. I just can't be away from home that long. And it's
a weird thing. It's like back when I was gone every week, I knew that I had a bed to go home to,
even if it was one night a week. And when we like, when we went to Italy, we were there for
like almost two weeks. And at the end of the two weeks, I was ready to come back home and come back
home. Even if I'm home for 24 hours, I can fly somewhere else. But you just have to have that
touch base. Yeah, you have the touch base. I have that plate. I just have to know this is, I'm good.
I was comparing real estate from Costa Rica to Puerto Rico, because we've talked about
buying a house in Puerto Rico. We haven't seriously looked, but we've talked about it.
And it's actually still a lot cheaper to go to Costa Rica for a house than it is. But there's pros
and cons to both. Right. You know, Puerto Rico being part of like a territory of the US. Yep.
That part. That's a big part. But their, their, their infrastructure is so fucked. Yeah.
You know, there's plates, there's parts in Puerto Rico where you can't flush toilet paper.
Right. You throw in the trash. Right. Yeah. You know, so we have to deal with that. Yeah.
Sometimes, you know, still, that's how the British Virgin Islands are. Is it? Yeah. Yeah.
Some of them. I mean, not all of them, but went to Yoz Van Dyke and it's like that. Same thing.
Yeah. It's, it's weird, right? Yeah. They have signs everywhere so that the tourists know, like
it's because they don't have that. Their country is a little like their government is a little weird.
Like it's an American territory, but they still have their own government. Right.
Because they're not officially, they're not, they're a territory, right? You know, there's
those, and it's not the people. It's, it's the government. It's the government. In fact, I looked
it up and the last time they put it to a vote, if they want to become a state, the people said,
yes, like something like 64% of people, but the government, their government has to decide if
they want to do it. And they always say no. But even if they say yes, it still has to come to
Congress and the American government hasn't decided. And so the pro and con is like, well,
they don't want to be over gentrified. Right. One could argue that I could go, we could buy
house in Puerto Rico right now. Right. You know, and they don't want to lose their culture and
they have a culture there. And that's one thing that was different about Costa Rica is aside from
the people being really nice because Americans and Canadians and everybody else has been going
there for 40 years. Yeah. You know, like if I were to say, make me a Costa Rican dish,
I don't know if anybody could, you just have to go to the right place. So I did some research on it.
And like a lot of their dishes is similar to other Caribbean dishes. True. So you have the plantains.
Yes. They're big on fruits and vegetables. Avocado is one of their big ones. Yes. So is
Mexico. Yeah. So is Puerto Rico. Mango. So is Mexico. So Puerto Rico. So, you know,
because it's in that same, it's all the same. Like Southern, you know, like you have Mexico
and then all the Central America and everything. Well, that's one thing Yvette has said. She was like,
you know, what is their food? And I go, I research it. It's fruits and vegetables,
really. And then where we went because it's tourism, and America's been going on for 40 years,
they got a lot of beef. They got a lot of those weird white cows. Oh yeah. They got the weirdest
looking cows. And I swear, it was cool because I want to give you that credit because one of my
biggest criticisms of her when we travel is not being present. She's always on her phone watching
TikTok or Instagram and not dumb shit. It's like, okay, these are excursions like useful stuff. Yeah.
Plus some dumb shit. But useful stuff. And I'm always like, put your phone down.
Look at where we're at. Look at that castle over there in the middle of Portugal. Right. You know,
this is shit you're not going to see. Yeah, you're not going to see that. So I look at dumb shit
like, oh, look at that tree. It's a weird looking tree. Are you kidding? I have like an app on my
phone that's, it's called seek. Because when I was in Petra, I could not identify a plant. Is it a
leaf? Is the leaf the icon? Yeah, I've had that before. And I'm like, I'm like, I can't identify
this plant and I got to know what it is. And it was papyrus, but I've never seen it like just growing,
you know, so I was like, that's what it is. To her credit, she had her phone because she'd
learned that she can leech off our travel phone. Oh, okay. Yeah, because we have this, we have a
dedicated travel phone. Nice. Yep. And we use the Aralo app, which you can buy, you know, from
the carrier time. Right. So that's what we've done because you, or you can pay AT&T $10 a day,
or you can buy, this time we bought the unlimited plan, and this isn't a commercial for Aralo,
we bought an unlimited plan for $30 unlimited data for seven days. For seven days. So, you know,
70 versus 30, you can spend that 40 on coffee. Yeah. And if this is getting reception, then you
can leech off your other phones. So, you know, I didn't tell her that we're in Portugal.
When she figured it out, she was in her phone the whole time and I was like, motherfucker,
you know, damn it. I need you to be present. But she was very present on this trip. Yeah. So,
she spotted the monkeys. Yep. You know, she spotted other stuff that I didn't, I mean,
I'm always looking when I'm driving, but I didn't even spot. So, you know, major props to her for
that. But yeah, I think we would definitely go back to Costa Rica and you hear people talking
about it all the time and it's like, you never really know what it is because it's big, it's
small, but it's big. We didn't go to the Caribbean side, you know, yet. I think, isn't that the
jungle side, I think? Well, the jungle runs kind of up the middle in a weird way. Yeah. But there's
a Caribbean side on the Atlantic, but we just, you know, we were two and a half hours from the
ocean where we were at Mount Nero and all volcano. And then when we got down the JW, the Pacific
side. Yeah. But even the Pacific side, one of the most popular places, beaches, we ate there at
night, but we didn't go there during the day and it was probably three kilometers. But the thing is,
on that side, because we didn't go to San Jose, if you look at a map, it's like, we were here,
I'm showing this on my hand, and Playa Conchella is right here, which is four kilometers away.
The problem is there was no coastal highway, and so you would have to go in and up and then back
out. And it's like, if I'm on a jet ski, I could totally get there in 10 minutes tops,
but I'm not. So it's a 45 minute drive in the car. So even when we went to Playa Conchella,
of course it's on the property of like the Weston, which you can't get to because you're not a guest.
So you have to go to the next nearest town, which is a kilometer and a half up,
and then you park at their beach, which is a nice beach, but then you have to walk for 25 minutes
to get to Playa Conchella. That's the northern tip of the Playa Conchella or say at the Weston
versus the all the way around, which apparently the other side of it, they have like super white
sands. And you can see it when you're on the beach, but I'm looking, I'm like, that's like a 45 minute
walk one way. And then back. Yeah. So we're not going to do that.
You know, when I was in Ireland, I walked so much. I couldn't believe how much I walked. I walked
so many miles because it was just so easy. Everything was, you know, it was like, there's
a pub here. And then there's this, you know, like the Guinness factory. And then there's the
Jameson fact. I mean, everything was just walking, but it's like, you can get yourself
what I'm trying to say is you can get yourself pretty far out. Yeah. And then all of a sudden
you're like, oh, my hotel's really far back. How much does it cost for a text?
Right. You know, there's people that'll pull up, you know, or like, or like Key West.
Or the Hop On and Hop Off Bus. Key West where you can rent a golf cart for the day.
Oh yeah, that's right. Or a couple of days. Yes, that'd be nice.
That was great. But I saw the weirdest golf cart. I have to tell you, okay, it was
Barrett Jackson, of course. It was. Oh, how was Barrett, by the way?
It was okay. I have had better Barrett Jackson's with better cars. So as a reminder, the people,
you may be listening for the first time, you may be watching for this first time. So Kat,
well, you get paid for that, right? I get paid for it. So she's one of the people who drives
the cars at Barrett Jackson. They get them up to the auction block, sometimes across the block,
and then returns them to their spot. You've been doing that for a couple years now, right?
Three or four? This is my fourth year. Yeah, fourth year. Yeah. So that's the context of this
discussion right now. So I was, I actually was looking for one of the cars that I needed to
take across the block. And I saw this very small Mercedes G-Wagon, and I'm like, that is super
small. And I'm like, looking at it, it has the Mercedes, everything, like totally decked out
inside has the screen and everything. I'm looking at it. I'm like, what the heck is this? This is
not a Mercedes. It was a golf cart. And it had everything like the interior had leather seats.
I mean, it was exactly like a G-Wagon only. It was a golf cart. Did you see the Winnebago one?
No, I didn't. So it wasn't up for auction, but there was, I'm going to show this to you right
now because I took a video and photo of it. There was a golf cart parked in the, obviously the
golf cart thing. In the golf cart parking, in the golf cart parking corral. But it was,
I'm showing her the picture right now. It looks like the old, old Winnebago golf cart.
And then, where's the video? I took a video of it. There you go. Oh my gosh, that's so funny.
Oh, it even has a bike on the back. Yeah. Do you see the license plate? No, it went really
fast. You like cut out really fast. I couldn't read it. Oh, the video's not over yet. It is
old fart. Old fart. Certified old fart as a license plate. That's awesome. I love it. So you
always see the craziest things at Barry Jackson. What was your favorite car this year that you
were able to drive? That I was able to drive? What did I drive that I really liked? Bentley,
Bentley Continental I think it was. I think that was the one that I really, really enjoyed driving.
Oh no, no, no, wait. The Corvette. Which Corvette? It was a ZRO something. I can't remember.
What was it like? Do you remember the year? It was a 2023. So it was a C8? Yeah. Okay, yeah.
Yeah, it was beautiful. What else did I drive? I drove a lot of trucks this year. Yeah. Like,
there were a lot more trucks this year. So I drove, I think, three Hummers. One of them was like
like the H1 and then the rest of them were like H3s. I drove a couple of Bentley's.
There was a lot of Bentley's this year. That's the other thing. It's like, for whatever reason,
it's like you'll get this glut of a certain type of car sometimes because everybody's like,
oh, that one went for a lot of money. So like everybody that has one wants to sell it and it's
like, well, then it doesn't work. What do you think? I'll get you out of here on this. What do
you think? And you may not have thought it because maybe you don't care. But what do you think the
next big thing is going to be for cars you think you're going to see based on the trends if you've
even paid attention to the trends? I have been thinking about that because I was like the
older like the older C5 trucks have been like the Chevy Blazers and stuff like that have
really been big for a couple of years now. And they're starting to taper off a little bit now.
Honestly, I think it's going to go more luxury because it hasn't been for so long. It's been
okay. So what do you mean by luxury? Well, like old Mercedes and like the older ones. Yeah,
like maybe an old like even an old gosh, I don't know, maybe the older Rolls Royces.
Oh, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah, like like luxury luxury, not like
super cars, but more like luxury vehicles. So like the older Rolls Royces, maybe the older,
maybe older Bentley, who knows, maybe like a Maybach, maybe. Yeah. I haven't seen very
many of those. I've seen a couple, but I haven't seen very many of those come across. I mean,
you always have your super cars because it draws the attention because they're flashy and everything
else. But they don't seem to like they bring in money. Don't get me wrong. No, but they don't,
they don't seem to hit their value. No, they don't. They seem to get the 4 GTs and the Law
Ferraris they never hit. And the more specialized they are, the less they go. The less they go.
It's crazy. Well, so not this year, but last year, I drove a Chevy Nova. Now this guy put
a lot of money into it. And it was a beautiful car. It was it had a it had a button that you
could push to make the exhaust either loud or quiet. So like you didn't have to make
all of your neighbors to stop. Yeah, a lot of modern super cars have that.
He shaved all the chrome off of it because it was a 63, I think, 63 Chevy Nova.
All the chrome was gone. So it's just glass into metal, right? So the windows were just smooth.
It was like an ice blue. It was it had a racing engine. I mean, it was right. And it was a
six speed. And I think the last speed said, oh, shit.
Sounds like a ring brothers creation. Yeah, it was just it was gorgeous car went for $500,000.
Yeah, they didn't get their money. Oh, he did. I know. I asked him, I said, how much do you
want for this? And he told me how much he had put into it. So he got a lot of that stuff. They
lose their ass on a lot of it. They do. Yes. Especially when they start modifying them like
that. Yeah. But he told me how much he did. And I'm like, OK, so we had to go over that amount.
And he's like, yeah. And I'm like, OK, we will. He's like, how are you going to do that? I go,
I don't know, we're going to do it. And the girl that slaps the sign on the car,
she and I thought it was over at like 300,000, you know, like getting ready to take my foot
off the brake and roll down the ramp. And she's getting ready to slap the stick around. We're
just waiting for the guy to hit the gavel. And all of a sudden this like fitting war goes off
between two people. And they're just going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
And it was like $500,000. And I was like, she and I are like looking at each other like,
well, that was way more than he needed. Have you ever had an opportunity to talk to or meet
April Rose? Like any of the people that are going around to stop and talk to you April Rose.
She's like super nice, isn't she? So nice. She is the nicest person. Very sweet.
I've had her on stage with me during a Future Collector car show. Obviously as the emcee,
but I've never had like a conversation. But she seems like she's super freaking nice. Because
some people, we just sat there and chatted one time because we were just waiting for somebody.
Some people, the cameras are on and they're cool. As soon as the cameras are off, they're
fucking assholes. Oh yeah, no, not her. But I've heard she's super sweet.
She's amazing. She is very, very sweet. And actually that whole camera crew,
like they appreciate the fact that, you know, like they only have so many people, right? And
Barrett Jackson on Saturdays especially is just ridiculously crazy. Yeah. And as soon as people
see the camera equipment, then they're all over there and everybody wants to go and kind of like,
yeah, exactly. They all want to be in the camera and everything. And so having drivers that will
just like stand back so that she can do her thing, but also help kind of like, hey, you need to go
around, you know, like helping out, even though that's not our job, you know, we don't have to do
it, but it helps them and it helps the company and it helps make a better production and everything
else. And it's like, you know, hey, why not? It's like, oh no, you have to go around, there's filming.
That's cool. They film, they're filming, you have to go. Sorry, no.
Is there anybody you've ever tried to say hi to that might be like legit that's just been like,
rude? Rude and fuck you. You don't have to name their names.
I will say that being a female driver is very hard. I know, you've said that before because
they're like, can you handle this woman? Yeah. And then you can handle 320 horsepower. Yep. Yep.
Whether it's, whether it's horsepower or it has three pedals, are you sure you can drive it? And
it's like, I grew up driving that way. So yeah, pretty sure. Yeah. Pretty sure I can drive it.
You know, I have to get on the podcast as Bogey and I've talked to her about this and I just
haven't talked to her probably in over a couple of years, but I need to either go to Bogey or get
her down here because we co-hosted the Future Club to car show together a couple of times.
And it's funny because she was like, I don't know anything about these cars. I don't know
any of these people, but they all know you. But on the counter that everybody who runs Barrett,
like Craig Jackson knows her, everybody at SEMA knows her. That's like an whole other level.
A whole, yep. Yep. Yeah. I may be a master of the little people as somebody once labeled me one
and no employer labeled me master of the little people. But yeah, she's like next level. So I
have to get her on here. Yeah, that would be great. I mean, and that's the thing. I mean,
I think it all depends on like, it's, it's like who you know and everything. I actually
have never had anybody that was upper level Barrett Jackson be rude to me at all. Like,
they've always been very nice to me. As a matter of fact, one of them gave me a ride in there,
whatever those, it wasn't a razor or something else. I can't remember. I got one of those
one of those kind of things. Yeah. And it was really cool because all the windows were like
totally blacked out and the vehicles all black and everything. So they got the $46,000 version.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Starts at 17. And it helped me because I was, I needed to get somebody
to tow two jet skis because, you know, of course they sell everything separately, right? And so
the two jet skis in the trailer went to one person and the truck went to another person. And so I'm
like, okay, so I need somebody to tow this. And so he came to get it. And I was just going to
walk back because, you know, I mean, sure, why not? I walk a lot, a lot, a lot. Barrett Jackson.
I don't walk a lot unless I'm on vacation. There for some reason, I don't mind, but
yeah, Barrett Jackson is a is a 20,000 step day at least, you know, every day. So like,
if you're doing it for five, seven, 12 days, you know, you're just like, you're walking constantly.
But so I was just going to walk back and he's like, oh, no, get in the back because his wife is in
the front. I'm like, okay. I feel like an idiot. But he was so nice. Like he was, he's one of the
people that are just super cool running around helping people out. So
well, Kat, yes, Jay, your, your, your glass is empty. My glass has been empty twice now. So I
got to get you out of here before you drink up all my liquor. From the bottom of my heart,
thank you so much for being you. Thank you for always being there. Not only with the one auto
group, one auto council, former member, it's always open if you ever want to come back.
I know, I know. I'm thinking, you know, obviously thank you for being a big supporter of the show
and coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me on again and have a wonderful evening
because I have an hour strut. No, a half hour drive from here. You're good? I'm good. Because
you drank like 350 milliliters. No, see, here's the thing. I got a different car. I don't have
the Mustang anymore because I wrecked it. I know you told me. But this vehicle pretty much drives
itself. Is it a Lexus? No, it's a, no, why do I say Lexus? Is it a Tesla? It's a Hyundai Santa Fe,
but it literally has like, like you literally, you don't want to, you just push all these buttons
and it just goes. So here's the thing, not to, not to keep this going super long, but one thing
people don't realize about Tesla and Elon Musk is his software is open source. Oh yeah. And so he
says other company, if you want to use it and perfect it and use it in your vehicle, you can.
And so that's probably where the technology came from. Probably is. Because I know even Honda
uses that. Yeah, I was going to say, because mine even has on the key fob, if somebody's parked too
close to me, I can just pull my car out. I know that. You know how I know that? Because Yvette and
I went and we test drove the new Palisade a few weeks ago and the guys like, you can literally park
and the person could park too close to you. And on the, like, just like you said, on the key fob,
you can hit a sequence of, and the car will fucking back out for you. It backs up. Yeah. It
does everything. It stops. That's pretty cool. Like, so somebody tried to, like, come over on my
lane. Oh yeah, it'll stop. And my car, like, evaded it. It, like, it, like, went around,
like, kind of swerved out of the way. And I'm like, why is my car swerving? Well, even when you're
doing that self park, that self park self adjustment mode, if someone were to walk, it'll stop.
It'll stop. Even if you're pushing the button and try, excuse me, trying to get it to go, it won't.
It's, like, it's probably the most, and it has, like, a little seat, like, the little
thing that you, it has air conditioning seats, heated seats. It has the little, like, thing,
like, rest mode or whatever. Sure. Like, you can just, like, kick back and whatever. I bought it
so that I could go camping and go car camping. So I don't have to, like, I like tent camping,
but every once in a while, it's nice to have a vehicle that you can lay into. Sure. It's big
enough for me to do that. I mean, and it's great because mileage wise, I'm sitting there looking
at my gas tank going, I need to get gas. Oh my God, I can make it Jay's. No problem. I still have,
it had, like, 50 something miles on it. And it still has, like, 40 something because it kicks
into, oh, sorry, it kicks into electric. Why is my microphone moving? How are you moving my
microphone from two desks over? I'm magic. I'm like, wait, what's going on here? But it has,
it has, like, the electric motor, so it's a hybrid. I have a hybrid one. And I got it for
commuting because I'm like an hour every way. I'm like, I want something comfortable.
Do you want people to follow you on social media? You're kind of a recluse.
I am a recluse, and I don't really go on social media that much anymore. I used to,
I might pull it up again someday, but, you know, we'll see. I mean, I'm not,
don't really make sure you follow hard parking. I do. Okay, good. I follow you,
personally, and hard parking, and J Travels, and J Travels, and West, and West, of course.
But anyway, well, thank you so much for having me on. I'll just take the rest of this one with me.
I got another bottle. All right, thank you. I get pulled over and I'm like, no.
This is mine. What do they call the dogs? My emotional support.
Yes, that is your emotional support bottle of bourbons.
Thank you so much, and thanks for the coffee. Oh, yeah, you don't owe me nothing for that.
That was how I lured you into studio. I love it.
I want to thank Kat Cox for coming into studio, as you can tell by this
Blanton's gold bottle. It's almost empty. She had two healthy pours,
and I had one pour, but you know what? That's okay, because that's the homie. She's been
supporting the show since day one, and those of you who have been to my house, been to my studio,
know that if you want the drink, I have the drink. That's a benefit of coming here in studio
and also trusting your driving skills. Want to thank, oh, wrong thing here. Okay.
This is your first time listening to the show. Make sure you hit subscribe,
whether you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, or you're listening to it wherever
you normally download your podcast. Hit subscribe, leave a review. I need that. I need you.
Want to thank Ray Honda, Wright Toyota, Sparkforge AI from Arcus Foundry,
AutoCannon, officially licensed Honda in Acura Gear. As you can see in this episode,
I am sporting the United Food Bank shirt from our recent success at the one-less car show and food
drive. I also want to thank Patreon business supporters Kuyo Automotive out of Winter Garden,
Florida. Automotive Specialty Tools out of Orleans as well as Maryland. The, the shape of success
out of Treasure Valley with the West Tinker City out of Boise, Idaho. We also have Beak House Small,
Beak House Small. We also have, we also have Beak House Small home design out of Asperg,
Virginia and Traverse City Mission. Last but not least, the Lucky Breaks sports breakers out of
Caledonia, Michigan. If you're in position to help the podcast upgrade, feel free to join the Patreon,
patreon.com, heartbroken podcast. You obviously don't have to, but you should. If you're watching
this on YouTube, you can also become a member. That little thing, like buy Jay a coffee or something,
if you really value this, which you may or may not. Special shout out to Mark Stoneman,
the cat cocks that was sitting in front of me, Eddie Ramos, Richard Gray, Richard Graves,
Alice Kameena, Drew Bunkley, Bo Jung, and of course, the Andre Mullins. We're going to email
the show info at hardparking.com, follow the show on Instagram at hardparkingpod. If you dare,
you can follow me on TikTok at smartparkingj. Otherwise, thank you so much for being here.
Make sure you check out the next episode next week. Shut up.
About this episode
Jay Finning and Cat Cox share a lively conversation about Jay's recent Costa Rica trip, including renting a Suzuki Jimny, navigating local customs like full-service gas stations, and observations on the country's economic disparities. They also touch on Ford's massive vehicle recall, discuss travel stories involving TSA and unique coffee finds, and chat about winter sports experiences and a recent movie featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. The episode blends travel insights with automotive talk and personal anecdotes, creating a relaxed and engaging dialogue.
A pillar
Barrett Jackson
blind spot
diesel version
gas version
golf cart
Honda
key fob
luxury cars
market glut
Acura MDX
Bentley Continental
Chevrolet Blazer
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Nova
Ford E-Transit
Ford Everest
Ford Excursion
Ford Expedition
Ford Explorer
Ford F 100
Ford F-150
Ford Falcon XR6
Ford Maverick
Ford Ranger
Hyundai Palisade
Lincoln Navigator
Mercedes-Benz G-Class
Suzuki Jimny
Toyota Hilux
Toyota Land Cruiser
Original notes
EP315
Costa Rica Trip Recap: Jimny Rental, Volcano Resorts & Kat Cox In Studio
In this episode, Jhae Pfenning is back from Costa Rica and breaks it all down with in-studio guest Kat Cox (Katherine Cox), a longtime supporter who's also spent time there. From Suzuki Jimny rental adventures, cold showers at Magic Mountain Resort, ATV tours, natural hot springs at Baldi, making chocolate from cocoa beans, monkey sightings, beach days at Playa Conchal, insane roads & Waze fails, to airport traffic nightmares — plus side tangents on movies, skiing, and a classic Nicaragua joke.
We also touch on Ford's huge 4.4 million vehicle recall (mostly F-150 & Super Duty trucks) due to a trailer software glitch — check the link below.
Timestamps
- 00:00 - Intro & laughs
- 00:44 - Ford recall news (4.4M vehicles)
- 01:55 - Spark Forge ad
- 03:14 - Kat Cox joins + Costa Rica coffee lure
- 05:20 - CR income disparity & San Jose chaos
- 07:19 - Suzuki Jimny rental review
- 09:11 - Skiing vs. snowboarding stories
- 10:55 - Movie review: One Battle After Another
- 16:15 - Resort fails: Magic Mountain cold showers
- 19:51 - Couples massage & hot springs (Baldi)
- 21:33 - ATV tour, iguanas, sloths
- 24:24 - Chocolate tour & making our own
- 28:25 - Roads in CR, Waze fails
- 32:26 - Monkeys, coati, beaches (Playa Conchal)
- 37:24 - Food, drinks, prices in CR
- 46:18 - Resort parking design rant
- 49:35 - Cars in CR (Everest, Prado, Kia trucks)
- 50:46 - Nicaragua joke & no military fun fact
- 52:21 - Hot tub kids, Canadians fleeing Trump?
- 56:41 - Airport traffic nightmare & Waze distrust
- 01:00:28 - Travel reflections & future plans
- 01:19:58 - Kat Cox wrap-up & thanks
- 01:24:32 - Closing sponsors, Patreon shoutouts
Ford Recall Reference
Ford recalls 4.4 million vehicles over faulty software (CBS News, Feb 2026):
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ford-vehicle-recall-software-issue-february-2026
Main Show Sponsors
- Right Honda: https://righthonda.com/
- Right Toyota: https://www.righttoyota.com/
- Arcus Foundry: https://arcusfoundry.com
- Autocannon Official Gear: https://shop.autocannon.com/
Contact Hard Parking with Jhae Pfenning
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.Hardparking.com
- Patreon: www.patreon.com/hardparkingpodcast/
- Instagram: instagram.com/hardparkingpod/
- YouTube: youtube.com/@HardParking
Thanks for listening! Subscribe, rate/review, and join us next week.
Hard Parking with Jhae Pfenning
Jhae Pfenning
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