Let's Talk with Mark & Michelle

What's it like to fish with a professional fisherman? Michelle and I met recently with Fred Roumbanis on Oklahoma's Lake Tenkiller to fish for small and large mouth bass. "Boom Boom" as he's called,  is on the Major League Fishing circuit. I shot Michelle and Fred fishing for a November segment on American Dream TV, and we made this podcast out of it.

We visit Grand Teton National Park every year, and sometimes twice. It's our favorite national park. But we also love going up into Yellowstone National Park when we're there. We make a beeline to the far northeastern corner of Yellowstone. The Lamar Valley is wild, rugged, remote and beautiful. It's often called the Serengeti of North America because it's teeming with wildlife...

I checked a hike off my bucket list recently. Michelle and I spent a week in Utah exploring Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. While in Zion we hiked Angels Landing. Everything I had heard and read about Angels Landing is how scary and dangerous it is. And how popular the hike has become. So popular that you have to enter a lottery drawing to get a permit. I did, and was fortunate to get one. N...

LIV Golf just finished a tournament in Oklahoma. The event was at Cedar Ridge Country Club in Broken Arrow. Some of the best golfers in the world teed off in our backyard ... Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Cam Smith, Talor Gooch, Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia. DJ won in a playoff. Lainey Wilson performed on Friday night after the first round. Michelle and I had a great time walking t...

Many people have asked us how we get around our National Parks and get the photos and videos of the wildlife and beautiful scenery. Michelle and I still work full-time and get limited time for our adventures. So we haven't pulled the trigger yet on an RV or trailer. That'll come when we have a lot more time to explore the great outdoors.  Until then we rent.  In this episode we talk to t...

As we anxiously wait for Yellowstone to return, Michelle and I tour an Oklahoma ranch for an upcoming episode of American Dream TV. Greg Ganzkow and his wife Rachel own and run (along with their three young children) the Keystone Ranch in Osage County. And you know what? Greg looks a lot like Rip on Yellowstone!! And he told us there IS a railroad station nearby! Fortunately he didn't take us...

Michelle and I have gone to Grand Teton National Park so many times, we know where and when to find the wild animals. We've seen grizzlies, black bears, bison, elk, moose and more up close. Sometimes too close. This will tell you where you have a good chance of spotting these animals and the stories behind our adventures (for example, when we ran TOWARDS a bear that came through our campsite)...

2022 was a year of adventure for us. In Part One, we explored Vail, Jackson Hole, Oregon and Spain. We finish out the year with our trips to Cancun, Glacier National Park and Grand Teton National Park.  In each of these epic adventures Michelle and I give you our tips for a better experience. We have advice on where to go or not go in Mexico, plus how to get around and the must-sees in Glacier and...

Michelle and I love Glacier National Park! And we hiked the Highline Trail , which is widely considered the signature trail in Glacier. Here are 8 things we think are important to know if you hike Highline. 

As we near the end of January, Michelle and I are in a vacation holding pattern. We don't have any trips planned for a couple of months. So we're taking this time to look back on 2022. It was a year full of adventure! So much adventure we're splitting it up in two parts. In part one we review our trips to Vail, Jackson Hole, Oregon and the highlight of the first half of the year, an...

It was a first for Michelle and I. For the first time in more than 25 years, we went on a ski trip to Vail, Colorado without kids. Our youngest boy, Tommy and his wife Ines, went to Miami for the holidays. Jacob and wife Mandi took their two year old Ava to Disney World.  David and Ashley have three kids (including twins) under the age of 2 and a half. Need I say anymore?  So Michelle and I packed...

Just about every home has color issues ... some minor, others major. The walls aren't the right color, maybe the trim doesn't match, or you're just tired of the brick and need a make-over. Don't just automatically call a painter for these jobs. What you may need is a colorist. We had a minor emergency with our outdated fireplace. The brick was boring so we had a painter paint i...

Here's quick announcement that Michelle will soon be on American Dream TV. ADTV has been around for a few years, and is streaming and airing in nearly every major city. And now it's coming to Tulsa. While the central focus is real estate and the people behind it, it's more than that. ADTV is a lifestyle show. Each program will feature something or someone that makes our community fa...

 Michelle and I decided at the last moment to take a quick trip up to Grand Teton National Park in late September. We usually visit in the summer, and went up to Glacier National Park instead. Early fall in Wyoming was beautiful. Michelle did a lot of fly fishing on the Snake River, and on the last day we decided to hire a local fishing guide, Ed Dutilly. We had quite the adventure, including a &q...

Michelle and I have taken up camping over the past five years.  It's more of a form of glamping. We rent a campervan every year and head up to one of our National Parks. We've actually become very good at getting around in the Mercedes Sprinter van we rent from a company based in Jackson, Wyoming called Moterra. We've been renting from owners Trevor, Gabe and Kevin practically since...

With more than 700 miles of trails, Glacier National Park is known as a hiking park. Maybe the signature hike is The Highline Trail.  The trailhead is at Logan Pass and almost immediately cuts a narrow path along a granite wall high above the Going-To-The-Sun Road. For nearly 8 miles you're hiking with views of unsurpassed beauty. The Highline takes you the heart of Glacier National Park to t...

In this episode Michelle and I tackle one of Glacier National Park's premiere trails. The hike up to Grinnell Glacier is quite a trek, especially on a hot summer day and when you take a wrong turn! We eventually make it, and it was certainly worth taking in one of the few remaining glaciers in America.  We also talk about our exciting and scary encounters with black bears, grizzlies and park...

Michelle and I recently visited Glacier National Park. It's a trip we've been wanting to take for several years, and finally made it happen in late August. The first thing we did was book a guided fly fishing  trip down the wild and scenic Flathead River. Michelle fishes, I take pictures. It works out perfectly! We hired a guide from Glacier Guides. We had no idea what to expect. Cam Wil...

Michelle and I took a quick trip to Cancun and the neighboring Isla Mujeres. We were told on social media that the seaweed/sargassum that's plagued the beaches wasn't a problem this summer. So we checked it out for ourselves. Spoiler alert: It's still a big problem!  We spent most of our time at a resort called the Valentin Imperial in the Riviera Maya. One day we took the short fer...

This has been quite a summer for America’s first national park. It’s Yellowstone’s 150th birthday, and it’s reeling from devastating flooding in June. In this episode of Let’s Talk, Michelle and I learn more about what’s going on in Yellowstone, a place we visit every year.  The flooding washed out roads, toppled bridges, sent thousands of tourists fleeing for safety and shut down the park for a w...

This is a tale about a trip to Spain. In it, a fairytale wedding on an exotic island ... the marriage and meeting of two cultures. But there's also plenty of drama and intrigue. A fire on a runway, missed flight, car crash, the mysterious missing (maybe lost!) (possibly stolen!!) luggage, a late night theft and a striptease! If Ernest Hemingway was still alive it might be his next novel. Well...

It's never easy saying goodbye to a parent. Michelle and I recently traveled to Oregon for my mother's memorial. Wilaura "Sue" Bradshaw lived a long and fruitful life. She passed away at the home of my sister at the age of 95. Mom and dad had been married nearly 74 years when he passed away in 2019. In this episode, Michelle and I talk about her legacy and numerous talents. She...

It was certainly an entertaining first round of the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, OK. From a limping Tiger Woods to the eccentric John Daly running around in a golf cart.  Certainly there was a lot of great golf for the tens of thousands of fans. But there was also some shock and anger from a few of the fans who, after a long and hot day on the course, went back to the cars and disc...

The PGA Championship is this week at Southern Hills in Tulsa. The best golfers in the world are in town for golf's major. Tiger Woods is already here. But the defending champion will not be.. Late last week the PGA of America announced Phil Mickelson would not be playing. In this episode of Let's Talk! Michelle and I talk about the upcoming golf tournament, the absence of our favorite go...

It may be a week late because of the lockout, but the Major League Baseball season is underway.  And we’re stoked! We’re baseball fans, but nothing like Robert Taylor. You could say he’s truly a baseball fanatic. When we heard about Taylor’s baseball memorabilia collection we had to check it out. It’s incredible! Like many young boys and girls, Taylor started collecting baseball cards at an early...