Unscaled: Recent Episodes
Full Metal Traveler
On Unscaled, host Jeremy Long (aka "The Full Metal Traveler") chats with travel influencers, business professionals and travel-holics to get the inside scoop and best practices on beautiful destinations around the United States and beyond. We mix in a little history, cocktail facts and recipes just for good measure. A travel podcast designed to be binged!
Check out a picture gallery of Seven Magic Mountains on the Full Metal Traveler website and subscribe to the FMT podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Ten miles south of Las Vegas, Nevada, seven towers cut through the desert sky.
They stand taller than one might think if you’re simply driving by on Interstate 15, on your way to lose your hard earned money in a gilded casino. At first glance they don’t seem that impressive from far away. It’s easy to dismiss them.
But their brilliant and bold colors stand in stark contrast to the mountain ranges, desert and dry lake backdrop that surround them.
According to the creator, Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone, this location is the physical and symbolic halfway point between the natural and the artificial.
The natural being the desert landscape. The artificial, of course, being the glitz and glamour of the casino lights as well as the constant traffic buzzing between Los Angeles and Sin City.
It’s hard to argue the point.
The boulders themselves teeter on top of one another, seemingly about to tip over at any moment. They rise thirty to thirty-five feet in the air, breathlessly creating an aura of the supernatural around them. Calling back to our primitive natures when we could neither understand nor fathom how man or nature could create something so big.
The locally-sourced lime boulders were cut with precision, painted and stacked in just a few months time, opening in 2016.
In this short amount of time they have become a hot spot for tourists, Instagrammable photo seekers, and curious locals all the same.
Each one taking something different with them once they leave.
The Swiss have a proverb that loosely translates to this: “Sometimes you have to be silent to be heard.”
In this place, these towers, these Seven Magic Mountains, speak the loudest, reminding us, albeit for a brief moment that we are both part of the natural world and artificially molded by the noise and chaos we create in it.
February 22, 1919. Pebble Beach Golf Links officially opens.
For the last 100 years it has been widely regarded as one of the most beautiful courses in the world, becoming the first public golf course to be selected as the number-1 golf course in America by Golf Digest in 2001.
But when it first opened, it was hardly the course the world knows it as now.
Budget constraints, a premature opening, and… sheep… all led to an uneven first few years.
Railroad partners Charles Crocker, Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford and Mark Hopkins were known to history as the Big Four.
Together they created the Southern Pacific Railroad and changed America forever.
When the last of the four associates, Collis Huntington, died in 1900 the railroad was sold and their incredibly vast company land holdings were ordered to be liquidated. These land holdings included the areas in and around Pebble Beach, California.
In the spring of 1915, Charles Crocker’s son and controlling heir put 29-year-old Samuel Finley Brown Morse in charge of selling off the company assets.
Morse was the captain of the 1906 national championship football team from Yale. Well liked with a sharp business mind, he was an easy pick to get the job done.
In order to find buyers, Morse abandoned a plan for small lots along the coast in favor of larger lots inland and a golf course that hugged the coastline.
It was as incredibly bold plan. Seeing though that the goal was liquidation and not investment, Morse had to convince the company he worked for that his plan would work. The board members had their reservations But Morse was not deterred.
Morse would use existing maintenance staff to build the course, and it would be operated by using an underground irrigation system and… sheep.
The course design would come free, courtesy of two well known amateur golfers: Jack Neville and Douglas Grant.
In 1916, the pair would complete their initial design and construction would begin.
Construction went slowly but by late 1917, the course was nearly complete.
The plan was to open the course on Feb. 22, 1918. But due to some delays was pushed back to April.
August Heckscher, the millionaire who built Central Park in New York, made an offer on the land, but it was too low… and that’s when Morse had an idea: he would buy the land himself, at the full asking price, if the company would give him a year to arrange proper financing.
The company agreed.
Samuel Finley Brown Morse purchased nearly 18,000 acres on the Monterey California coast, including the world renowned Hotel Del Monte which had opened in 1880, for $1.3M dollars.
On February 22, 1919, Pebble Beach Golf Links opened. The next week Morse’s Del Monte Properties Company closed the sale.
The course was visually stunning but it did not have immediate impact on golf, and had its share of critics.
Morse had already opened the Del Monte Golf Course in 1897, and was warmly received by the area residents and the golf world. To this day Del Monte Golf Course remains the oldest golf course in continuous operation west of the Mississippi River.
Everything changed in September 1929 when Pebble Beach held its first “major”, The U.S. Amateur championship, and the star power of 27 year old Bobby Jones.
The area in and around Pebble Beach operated as a hideaway for the rich and powerful, hosting celebrities, sports icons and even royalty. The property was known far and wide for its extravagant parties and alcohol even during prohibition.
The Great Depression nearly ended the course, dropping membership down to almost zero.
World War 2 also nearly crippled Pebble Beach.
But it was kept alive through Morse’s smart business ventures, including leasing the Hotel Del Monte and land to the U.S. Navy for use as a flight school.
Over its 100 year history, Pebble Beach has m
The El Presidente is a decidedly Cuban cocktail, perfect on cool days in the Spring or Fall... or hell, whenever.
Like the telephone, Model T, or cassette tapes, it's a cocktail whose best days have passed. There are very, very few bartenders who can make it anymore. Most wouldn't even try, instead meeting you with a blank stare and a beer menu.
A moment of truth: I've had variations of this drink, but who can know what the authentic taste is unless you find yourself in an old throwback bar in Havana? For that reason alone, Cuba just moved up my travel list.
It became the preferred drink of the Cuban upper class and those Americans who could afford to skirt the laws of Prohibition (1920-1933) by visiting the Las Vegas of the Caribbean: Havana, Cuba.
Author Wayne Curtis, who wrote an excellent article on the disappearing act of correctly mixed cocktails, called Prohibition the dark ages for drinks in America where "Americans not only lost the knowledge of making sophisticated drinks, but they forgot what a good cocktail tasted like."
"Americans not only lost the knowledge of making sophisticated drinks, but they forgot what a good cocktail tasted like."Wayne Curtis, "El Presidente" for LostMag.com
Most attribute Eddie Woelke with the creation of the drink, but like all good legends, no one is completely sure. Woelke supposedly named the drink for Cuban President Gerardo Machado, who reigned during most of the Prohibition years.
It made its way stateside and had a fun run where, I'm positive, most serious bartenders would have known this drink like he back of their hands. At least they would have known it as well as an Old Fashioned or Manhattan.
As noted, like any well traveled legendary drink, there are many variations depending on taste.
Some garnish with a twist of orange peel or a cherry or both. Some call strictly for Curacao. Others say Grand Marnier.
All I know is if you get the basics right, you'll have one hell of a good cocktail, a story you can share at a party, and a call back to all lost and forgotten things.
Los Cabos is the area located on the southern most tip of the Baja California peninsula is made up of two towns: Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo.
Today it is home to sprawling all-inclusive resorts, world class restaurants and private VIP getaways. It’s come a long way from its humble and often violent past.
The history of Los Cabos is incredibly fascinating when you consider its place on the world stage.
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Nevada. The Battle Born State. August 9, 1904.
One hundred and twenty miles northwest of present day Las Vegas.
Euphoric cries of joy spring from legendary old time prospector Frank “Shorty” Harris’ lips!
“Ed, we’ve got the world by the tail, or else we’re coppered!” he hollers at his befuddled partner Ed Cross.
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