WORDS WITH A WISEGUY 15 ...
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THE PAST THREE WEEKS …
I’ve not done much traveling since returning home from Hawaii a few weeks ago. Although I did make a short trip down to Oklahoma to film one of Route 66’s two remaining spurs (US 266). Earlier this year I did two videos on US 166 in Kansas – which is the other spur. US 266 goes from Henryetta to Warner, Oklahoma. And back when Route 66 first started in the 1920’s, US 266 extended all the way to Oklahoma City (which is now US 62). So I went and filmed all of that too.
That’s it for me traveling lately. I’ve been very busy here in Wichita with track and field coaching. I was the public address announcer at the AAC Cross Country Championships last week. I only made two mistakes – unfortunately you could hear them on the ESPN+ coverage. Oops. Needless to say I’m looking forward to getting on the road again next week!
WHERE AM I GOING?
I’m still trying to figure it out, but it’ll probably be somewhere that’s not too far from Wichita. But when Thanksgiving rolls around, I plan to head to the Texas Panhandle. I’m going to do a more significant exploration of Route 66 through Texas while also visiting Roberts County. Roberts County has a total population of 827, which makes it the 8th least populated county in the state. Texas has so many small counties (by population), and this one is right in the panhandle where I’ll already be located. It only has one incorporated town (Miami – population 539). Should be interesting!
I’ve been thinking a lot about where I’m going to travel over the long holiday break. By the 2nd week of December my coaching duties are on hold for several weeks. I envision heading south which could mean anywhere from Florida to Arizona and anywhere in between. I’ll also head up to Ohio to spend Christmas with family. Hopefully I’ll have more plans detailed in blog #16.
YOUTUBE, THE ELECTION, AND BEYOND
Running a YouTube channel during one of the craziest election cycles has been interesting. On one hand it feels like my videos are getting less views than normal. But on the other hand there has been so much advertising revenue by the candidates that the money per view has been better than ever. So I guess it kind of evens out. I recently spoke with Joe Evans of Joe & Nic’s Road Trip, and he talked about how high his earnings per view were too.
The holiday season is also normally a good time for YouTube because of the increased advertising, and then it drops off a cliff as soon as Christmas is over. January and February are the worst months, and a lot of YouTubers don’t take those months as serious for that reason. I’ll continue to release videos without thinking about that stuff for one second :)
MEMBER VIDEOS
I released one of my member videos for free a couple weeks ago and had several people sign up afterwards. Thank you! If you are curious about those videos, this is a typical “behind the scenes” of those videos.
RUNNING OUT OF VIDEOS
In the last section I always give a preview of what’s to come. This time there are lots of “TBA” down there, because I’m almost out of videos I’ve filmed. Mainly this was because I didn’t film a bunch in Hawaii. Usually for a vacation like that I would come back with 10-15 videos. This time was half that. I was trying to focus on having fun with family and not YouTube. But I’m not worried because between Thanksgiving and the holiday break, I will have more than enough videos to carry the channel well into 2025.
FOR THE DIEHARDS (Spoiler alert)
For those of you who read all the way to the bottom, here are the upcoming videos on the channel for the next 3 weeks (tentative):
Sun, Nov 10: Hawaii Behind-the-Scenes
Tue, Nov 12: Hawaii Q&A with Curt Rierson
Thu, Nov 14: Historic Downtown Wichita
Sun, Nov 17: US 62 Oklahoma (old US 266)
Tue, Nov 19: The Complete Oregon Trail (compilation from 2022)
Thu, Nov 21: TBA
Sun, Nov 24: US 266 Oklahoma
Tue, Nov 26: Interview with Mike Kennedy (WSU announcer)
Thu, Nov 28: TBA
Sun, Dec 1: TBA
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!
Thanks for reading all my ramblings!
If you enjoy my channel and want to help it grow, feel free to share videos to your friends and/or family! I also have Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X (Instagram is probably the best to follow). Oh yeah buy some merch! (but only if you want)
Thanks for all the support and we’ll see you down a backroad!
John Wise
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