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Paddy: at 30 years old, to 33 years old, you did. Your flag in the ground, life changing. trip and there's somebody else who did some pretty big shit from 30 to 33. And that person was Jesus Christ. Now I don't know if this makes you Outdoorsy Gay Jesus, but I am just gonna put that on you.

Mikah: Paddy, youu just came up with the headline for this podcast, Outdoorsy Gay Jesus, and, and it shall be.

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Paddy: PADDY VO:

I am a pretty crummy sleeper. At best, I get somewhere between 4 to 6 hours of nightly slumber. Sometimes though, like a couple nights ago, I bank a whopping 90 minutes. Praise be to coffee.

I wish I could blame it on my recent sleep apnea diagnosis. But my soft palate being a lazy jerk is not the real culprit here. [00:01:00] It’s my brain’s nocturnal review of my life’s many moments of embarrassment, the social gaffs I keep filed away in the caverns of my cranium.

It starts out seemingly harmless, like the time I walked into the chandelier at my homecoming date's house when I was 14. Smacked it so hard the thing swung around like a disco ball. But the memories invariably get heavier, as I mull over my drunken 20s, and the moments when my character was put to the test and I faltered.

There are things we keep so hidden we can’t put words to them, as if the breath would bring them back to life. Maybe we let our parents down, crushed the heart of our spouse or child, failed to speak up when someone we love needed us most. Whatever the situation, shame is a fire that we too often stoke with the timber of [00:02:00] our heart.

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The stories we tell ourselves become our reality, and we drag shame through that reality like an anchor. But who would we be if we could unchain ourselves from that shame? We might be more like Mikah Meyer, an endurance athlete and the first person to visit all 419 National Parks sites on a single continuous journey.

I met Mikah last spring at the 5Point Film Festival in my hometown of Carbondale, Colorado. I chatted with him there after he premiered his film, Canyon Chorus, which is a beautiful tale about the power of mentorship set against a multi-day raft trip on the Green River, through Desolation Canyon in Utah.

I've learned a lot about Mikah since then, like the fact that he likes to run across whole states, and not the small ones. Ya know, states like Minnesota. In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Mikah is [00:03:00] a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and the founder of the ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Safe Space project and the group Queers for Christ. Also, he has the signing voice of a Greek Siren.

But the most amazing thing about Mikah is how persistently filled with joy he is. It's a joy that only comes when you've unburdened yourself from the weight of shame. It's how he unburdened himself--and the role that his time outdoors played in that process--that I found most inspiring, and I think you will, too.

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Mikah: I'm ready. Let's rock and

Paddy: First things first. Burnt Toast. What's your last humbling and or hilarious moment outside?

Mikah: I'm training for a marathon right now and my legs hurt really bad and I was on a dating app and some guy said that he worked for a Korean spa

so like, why don't we meet at your Korean spa? And he was like, well. You know, that Korean spas are all naked, [00:04:00] right? so it'll be a naked first date. And I said, okay, I'm fine with that.

And this past Sunday, I ran 22. 22 miles. As I was doing my final mile, he texted me He's like I'm too nervous. I can't do this and I'm like bro. I am so ready to soak in a Korean spa and you are canceling on me like come on So lesson learned if you're gonna do a first date at a Hot Springs do it at a non naked hot springs or spa, and they're way more likely to show up.

Paddy: Mikah, you have just set the bar for Burnt Toast. Thank you very much. Ok, let's get into it!

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The three year road trip the first thing that popped in mind when I heard about this is, How many gas station hot dogs did you eat I know how I eat during, like, a weekend road trip, and it's not great.

Mikah: My gas station equivalent hot dog was, at the time it was called the Wendy's 4 for 4. [00:05:00] And it was like a hamburger, a four piece chicken nuggets, a small fry, and a drink for 4. And let me tell you, as somebody who had no sponsors and was living off a shoestring and a prayer, that Became my diet, which caught up with me, and by two years into the road trip, I was the heaviest I'd ever been in my life. Cause I was just eating crap the whole time.

And that's what got me into running too, is I was like, I can't join a sports league, I can't join a gym, I'm never in the same city more than like a few days. So the only workout I could do was running, and I'm like the kid that could never run the mile in school without getting a side ache.

And by kid, I mean like K 12, college, master's degree, 20s, like, could not run. But I had no choice, like, this was the only way, , to get back into the body I wanted. And so I, I got super into running, and now I'm running marathons all the time, and I'm one of those crazy runners that never knows when to stop.

Paddy: Well, the goal of the National Parks, , road trip was not to, [00:06:00] Get a heart murmur the goal of, , visiting all of the National Park sites was , uh, it was twofold, right?

It was to set a new world record and the second part of it was to honor the memory of your father. Road trips are a really good time to get a lot of thinking done. You have a lot of time with the steering wheel, , and just kind of like spacing out.

How did that time help you process the loss of your dad?

Mikah: Well, it was huge. I Actually took my first ever independent road trip Just a few days after his funeral when I was 19 years old and when you talk about like processing behind the wheel that was it because He had cancer all through my high school years. So like I was taking finals during my junior year, like while he was in surgery, getting his esophagus cut in half.

And it was like, I'm trying to take my Spanish test. , so it was a, it was a hard three years of high school. And then he was in like pretty intense hospice for his final [00:07:00] year. We were on seizure watch for him. He was at our house with all his doctors and nurses coming. And so it was just a lot.

And so to just like physically separate myself finally as an adult, as a 19 year old and hit the road and just like remove myself from sort of that space that was just like cancer and death for so long

Paddy: Mm hmm.

Mikah: and hit the wide open spaces of the prairie, it, I didn't realize that at the time, but it's like it created the physical space that my body and my mind needed to create the mental space.

in me that would allow me to start to process what had happened, what life was going to look like going forward, and ultimately how I could still live a life where I felt like my dad was part of it, even if he wasn't physically around. And because my dad always loved road trips, that kind of became my way to connect with him posthumously. So every year I would do one road trip. And like, as I did those road trips , and met friends around the country, and they [00:08:00] said, you know, why are you doing this road trip? I would tell them like, well, my dad passed away at 58. He didn't get to retire. None of us is guaranteed to make it to 81 or 82 or whatever the average male age is these days.

So like, I just want to do something in case I die young. And I just realized how many of my peers, like, it helps us get through school, but like we're sold this lie that we're all going to live to our 80s.

Paddy: Mm hmm.

Mikah: And that is so not the case. Obviously, it wasn't the case for my dad. And he, like, did everything right.

You know, like, he had a job he loved. He was saving for retirement. He and my family had built their retirement dream home in Florida, and everything was lining up to, like, live that American dream. And then, it was taken from him unexpectedly by cancer.

And so, I just really wanted to do something. To sort of shake my friends and be like no like you're not guaranteed to get to retire and they weren't getting it with Just my little week long road trips every year So I was like I have to put it on steroids and do it when I turn 30 like at an age that feels [00:09:00] Monumentous when you're in your late 20s, you're like, oh my god, I'm gonna turn 30.

My life is gonna be over. It's not it's not

Paddy: Yeah.

Mikah: But it just felt like the right time

Paddy: From the outside looking in, to me, , the three main pillars of your personhood are a Christian, an outdoors person, and a gay man. Do you feel like there's a friction or a tension between these buckets of your identity? Do they complement one another?

Mikah: You know, I don't feel like there's a friction or identity, but I'll tell you who does feel that way pretty much the whole world. Um, you know, yeah, I mean, there's so many haters who say that gay people make being gay our whole personality and I'm like, well, it's just because we're trying to I'm going to help you see us as equals.

And if you would just see us as equals from the get go, then I could make being an outdoorsman my whole personality.

Not to get like super deep and spiritual with you right away, but

My dad was a preacher he was the pastor at America's largest Lutheran campus ministry and at one point won the award for being the best Lutheran campus Pastor in the country and when you're the [00:10:00] pastor's kid Everybody asks you you're gonna grow up and become a preacher like your old man

Paddy: Mm.

Mikah: let me tell you, I always answered with the same answer, which was, heck no.

And I said, heck, because I was a good pastor's

Paddy: Nice. Nice.

Mikah: Honestly, the beautiful thing about it is like my Christian friends always made fun of me for being gay and my gay friends always made fun of me for being Christian. So when you're constantly living in a world that tells you like, you shouldn't exist or you don't fit in, it teaches you a lot about empathy and about seeing other people who kind of the world says are not good enough or not cool enough or not smart enough or don't fit the stereotypes or don't fit the mold or are rocking the boat in the wrong way. There's probably some love that you're not seeing there, and it helps you see that.

Paddy: In terms of the intersection of, outdoors person and your faith, you, , You wrote something that really stood out to me in reference to your parks road trip. And you wrote that, If the experience of my parks journey has taught me anything, it's [00:11:00] that one doesn't need to be plastered on the headlines or across social media to allow someone to feel closer to God and their true selves. Why? And how?

Mikah: Dang, Paddy, you did your research on this. You know, I went into this National Parks journey with an idea of what an outdoorsman was. , you know, it's like Bear Grylls, and I was trying to find sponsors. And every time I looked at van life stuff, it was just like straight white couples. Like that was all I could find getting sponsored to do this.

And so like, I went into this trip with a very clear idea of like, this is what an outdoorsy person is. And I do not fit that mold. I do not fit that mold because I'm gay. I do not fit that mold because I'm from Nebraska, one of the flattest States in the country. I do not fit that mold because like. I didn't go camping as a kid.

My dad worked on the weekend, so I never did the Boy Scout thing. I never did the weekend camping trip. Like, I did not fit any of those molds of what like outdoors advertising or the outdoors culture told me you had to be to enjoy the [00:12:00] outdoors. And then I actually went and I did it and I did it in a way that no human had ever done before.

And I realized that I fit so much into that and all of us. No matter if we look like the model in the Patagonia ad or not, we all fit in.

Paddy: Do you feel like the, road trip and going after the record taught you something about your faith that you didn't know? Taught you something about the outdoors that you didn't know,

Mikah: yeah, so, my dad totally got me posthumously because if you ever talk to a Lutheran and you say the word vocation, their eyes are going to light up and they'll get like a little hot sweat because it's like one of the main tenants of our faith is that there's a theme in our lives called vocation.

What a vocation is, is it's not just a paycheck. It's not just a job, but it's your life's calling. It's the place where your greatest talents meet the world's greatest needs. And when you find that intersection and they come together, that's your life's vocation.

And so, this trip allowed me to find my life's vocation. Like, I left on this park's journey [00:13:00] thinking I had to hide that I was gay to be able to fundraise. I had to hide who I was to get the interest of the outdoors industry. And in actuality, it was Telling people about who I was, being openly gay and an outdoorsman that ended up providing people who wanted to donate and saved the journey.

And it showed me that there were so many people out there who needed to see an openly gay outdoorsman to help them be that person and enjoy the outdoors. So this park's journey taught me my life's vocation, which is being that role model that I never saw. And actually, as I later learned, , Martin Luther, the founder of our church and denomination, used to say that you don't find your vocation by studying your navel or listening to your innermost thoughts.

You find your vocation by listening to the calls of the world and the way the world is telling you to use your talents to meet their needs. And like this was quite literally thousands of people sending me messages on social media and emails [00:14:00] saying. Hey, I'm a lesbian park ranger and I don't see any representation.

Hey, I'm a gay kid and I love to hike and I don't see myself. Like they were telling me what they needed me to do.

Paddy: When you would get those messages, would you feel, a sense of duty, a sense of calling? Was it simultaneously like, almost like a sense of, oh my God, I better not screw this up.

Mikah: Yeah,

There's a song from the musical into the woods that is sung by the witch and it's called children will listen And the whole point is basically like Kids are always listening to what you're saying and you're doing so like be careful the role model you're providing them because they're listening and they're watching and they're going to act that way.

\ the first year of the three year journey was really cool. I had a boyfriend who came along. And after a year of living in a 70 square foot van together he was like, I love you but I can't do this anymore I'm out. So then year two was

Paddy: I can smell the Wendy's wrappers, I am out of here.

Mikah: Honestly though, he was like way too much Wendy's I'm out. But year two was like, I'm gonna get halfway. I'm gonna like do this. So there was all that motivation and by [00:15:00] year three, like I was, I was gassed. I was exhausted. I was so done. But I'm like, I can't let that 12 year old from Indiana down.

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Paddy: One of the interesting things. about the road trip was that it was largely funded by churches and church groups that you spoke at during the trip. You have often talked about how you felt the need to go back into the closet to secure the funding for that trip.

And I think this might be a surprise to people listening who are of the, you know, super crunchy granola kumbaya. outdoor community, is that you have framed that pressure to appear straight as coming more from the outdoor community than from the Christian community. Does that surprise folks when you tell them that?

Did it surprise you when you set out for this?

Mikah: it didn't surprise me that the outdoorsy community was not, , welcoming of LGBTQ plus people because I'd grown up like, never seeing any role models, never seeing anyone like me. It [00:16:00] surprised people who work in the industry. Like, in 2017 And 2018 I talked to like major major brands who you've all heard of and I talked to their head of corporate communications, their marketing manager, like the people with the power and I would tell them like, Hey, like male male households earn 63, 000 a year, more on average than heterosexual couples, according to the IRS.

Hey, every major league sports team is marketing to queer couples because we're less likely to have kids and more likely to be able to attend a Tuesday night game and buy beer and merch. Hey, there's a trillion dollars of purchasing power from this demographic. Like, you should really market to us. And, like, no joke, the same response I got from all of them was, it would offend too many of our customers if we put an openly gay guy in an ad.

It's just not worth it to us financially. Like our customers are so homophobic that we can't do this.

Paddy: That sucks on so many levels .

How was that not debilitating? How did you not [00:17:00] stop the trip there and then?

Mikah: Because of the members of the queer community who love the outdoors, who were writing me being like, this means so much to me that you're doing this, like, that's what fueled me. But it's super fascinating what you say, because, I have met a lot of people who are part of the outdoors culture and I tell them this and they're like, Oh man, I don't feel that way.

Like, I wish my industry wasn't that way. Like, what can I do to change? So there are a lot of great people. It's not like a blanket statement that everybody in the outdoors community is homophobic. This is just like what the powers that be have been marketing.

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as I did those road trips sort of the funniest thing in the world happened in that, like, I'd only saved up like maybe one fifth of the amount of money it was going to take to pull off this park's journey. I do not come from money and I was running out of money on this park's journey.

I had like a month's worth of money left and was going to have to quit. And then by a bunch of really. Wild cosmic fortunate circumstances. You call it what you want. I ended up being invited to be the guest singer and preacher at churches all [00:18:00] around America, and I ended up being the guest singer and preacher at 113 churches around the country on this three year journey.

And they say that my dad is responsible for sending over 100 of his students to seminary to become pastors one

Paddy: Uh huh.

Mikah: And I joke and I say, Ladies and gentlemen, for Larry Myers final act. He got his own son who swore he would never become a preacher to be a traveling minister for three years. Like, he's up there like, I got you.

You tried not to and I got you. But let me tell you, those churches, they funded the whole Parks journey. And I, every week, I put out a basket and every week I got enough money to keep going.

So, like, take that for what you will.

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Paddy: In addition to the gigantic road trip and your commitment to, pushing the needle on the culture of the outdoors, you have done a lot of large, outdoor projects. You have run across Minnesota, [00:19:00] Nebraska, Liechtenstein, Mississippi, and you've biked across Oregon. what do these Big projects taking them on. What does it do for you? Why do you do them?

Mikah: For me, it's not so much about an adrenaline rush as it is just like a desire to not live in fear. And, and especially going back to my dad, to not live a life that if I got cancer tomorrow and died a year from now that I would look back and be like, Oh man, I kicked the can down the road and I waited too long.

And I wish I would have done those things. Like, what did they say? You don't regret. People on their deathbed don't regret the stuff they did. They regret the stuff they didn't do. And so for me it's, it's less of like, I need to do some crazy epic adventure that, you know, pushes me to the limits and maybe makes me die.

I'm like, I just wanna do fun rad shit. Like me. Memorable stuff like the run across Minnesota, I got in the biggest fight I've ever gotten with, with my childhood best friend, the run across Mississippi. [00:20:00] My boyfriend, uh, cheated on me and left me at the end of that trip.

Paddy: oh my god

Mikah: the run across Nebraska, I, like, sunk into a deep depression because I was so lonely. And even as I tell you these shitty things that happened, I'm smiling. If you can't see this, because this is a podcast, because amidst those struggles, those, like, hardships that happened, were some of the most fun, fulfilling moments of my life.

Like, some of the most unique, memorable experiences. And so when you ask, like, why these big epic adventures, I think it's because, like, we don't remember the Tuesday , filling out our checkbook. We don't remember, like, the Thursday standing in line at Costco. But I, sure as heck, remember being in my Winnebago RV and surviving a massive thunderstorm in the Minnesota plains with my boyfriend sitting in the front seat, like, Why are we doing this?! Because those are the moments that, like, Type 2 Fun, you look back and you're like, Dude, we lived!

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PADDY VO: Mikah [00:21:00] Meyer is all about L-I-V-I-N. But how did her learn to live free of the shame he carried for so long? He went on a multi day river trip with his firends and his mentor of course. That story after the break.

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Paddy: You turned another giant trip of yours, into a beautiful film, Canyon Chorus, which I saw at Five Point, , last spring. It was one of my favorite, Films of the entire festival. And it's a multi day raft trip down the green river through desolation Canyon in Utah with three pals and Larry, lovable Larry, who is your mentor.

He's so great. Larry is your mentor and your, , former choir director. What was the goal of the trip in the film? Ha ha

Mikah: Um, to find Larry a wealthy husband. No, [00:22:00] it, The goal was to think more about Larry in the sense of like, I auditioned at the University of Memphis for Larry, my eventual choir director, three months before my dad died. And then Larry got me the full tuition scholarship to the Universi