Latest Offthegrid Podcast Episodes

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What's Up With White Shirts in Abandoned Car Doors?

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - March 06, 2024 12:22 - 14 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
Once you’ve seen one broken-down junker with a white rag in the window, you start seeing them everywhere. Is this just a North Carolina thing? What’s it supposed to mean? Why do so many people do it? And, if so many people are doing the same thing, then where did the idea come from? Reporter Jer...

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How Much of Greenville's Economy Relies on MrBeast? (w/ Drew Harwell)

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - February 23, 2024 10:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) has more than 300 million total subscribers on YouTube and some of his videos have more viewers than the Super Bowl. He’s opened restaurants. He’s launched his own food company called Feastables. The MrBeast logo is now on the jerseys of the Charlotte Hornets. Also...

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The Greatest "I Voted" Sticker Ever

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - February 16, 2024 13:15 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
A sixth-grade student from the Raleigh area drew a boy riding a unicorn. It's now the official "I Voted Early" sticker for the Wake County Board of Elections. In this episode, artist Shannon Fisher explains some of the details and the background behind a sticker that's turning heads at polling p...

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The Dick Trickle Maneuver (w/ Ryan McGee)

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - February 08, 2024 20:08 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
In this episode, host Jeremy Markovich and ESPN senior writer Ryan McGee talk about beer, old school racing, a man named Dick Trickle, and a quiet trick to to help you navigate a boisterous social situation. Read Jeremy's 2013 SB Nation story about Dick Trickle: "Elegy of a Race Car Driver" ...

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A Holiday Story: Deck Your Halls With Rauch Balls

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - December 21, 2023 21:33 - 25 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
In this special holiday episode, host Jeremy Markovich meets the man from Gastonia who became the world's largest manufacturer of Christmas ornaments and used his power to make North Carolina more tolerant of all religions. This episode was originally released in 2018 and was adapted from: "Th...

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How Racing Returned to North Wilkesboro

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - May 17, 2023 14:18 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
North Wilkesboro Speedway is hosting the NASCAR All-Star Race, a quarter century after its last major event. Why did it sit empty for so long? And how did it finally reopen? In this episode, host Jeremy Markovich takes a look back as a historic place now looks toward a new future. More Reading...

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Panthers Aren't Real

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - April 27, 2023 09:20 - 18 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
Shortly after I moved to Charlotte in 2005, I became a Carolina Panthers fan because it was much better than being a fan of the Cleveland Browns. A few years later, I became the producer of the Panthers postgame show on a local television station. A few years after that, the production moved fro...

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Hello Again

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - April 20, 2023 09:00 - 6 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
After 2 1/2 years, host Jeremy Markovich is breaking his silence to explain, well, where he's been all this time, why you haven't heard any new episodes since then, and what happens now. Read more here about the immediate plans for Away Message and its new home at the North Carolina Rabbit Ho...

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S4 E8: Climbing Down From The Dune

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - November 03, 2020 10:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
In the season finale, our hikers reach the Outer Banks of North Carolina and end of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Now, more than a year later, we see where they've ended up and how the trip has affected their lives.

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S4 E7: The F-Words

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - September 24, 2020 09:00 - 38 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
As our Mountains-to-Sea Trail thru-hikers approach the end, one final challenge remains: A kayak trip down two of North Carolina's most well-known waterways. All will have to grapple with problems that could potentially stop them from reaching their final destination.

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S4 Bonus: How to Hike, with Jennifer Pharr Davis

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - September 04, 2020 20:08 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
In this bonus episode, host Jeremy Markovich talks with long-time hiking guide Jennifer Pharr Davis about how anyone can prepare for and pull off a trip on a trail, from day-trippers to thru-hikers on North Carolina's Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Read Davis's story about hiking the Appalachian Tra...

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S4 E6: A Trail Town Without A Trail

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - August 20, 2020 09:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
In this episode, we travel to Roseboro, a small eastern North Carolina town that sits on the route of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail but doesn't actually have any good places to hike. Yet. We also meet the trail angels that hikers depend on to get to the end, and talk to a woman who's attempting to ...

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S4 E5: The Long Road

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - July 24, 2020 09:00 - 38 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
As Erin Brennan and Aaron and Lexi Harris pass the halfway point on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, the path undergoes a dramatic shift from footpath to roadside. In this episode, we take a closer look at the parts of the MST that only attract the most intrepid hikers, and discover what it takes to ...

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S4 E4: Elkin

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - July 03, 2020 01:29 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
When it comes to trail towns along the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, Elkin stands out. So how did a quiet place in the North Carolina foothills go trail crazy? We find out, thanks to the men who are building footpaths as fast as they can.

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S4 Bonus: The Voice of George Simkins (Replay)

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - June 11, 2020 09:00 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
In 1955, a dentist and five of his friends played a round of golf. They were black. The course was white-only. What happened next changed the course of one man's life, and in turn, helped integrate an entire town. This originally premiered in July 2018 under the title "The Round of Golf That Cha...

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S4 E3: The Newlywed Game

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - May 25, 2020 09:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
What's it like to be with the one you love 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? In this episode, host Jeremy Markovich meets Aaron and Lexi Harris, a pair of newlyweds who experienced the highs and lows of hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail across western North Carolina.

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S4 E2: The Warriors on the Trail

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - May 01, 2020 09:00 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
On the first day of her trip across North Carolina on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, veteran Erin Brennan is making sense of new gear, new routines, and a new beginning with the help of Warrior Expeditions, a group that treats hiking like therapy.

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S4 E1: 1,175 Miles

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - April 14, 2020 09:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
The new season of our award-winning podcast begins with some fairly basic questions. What is the Mountains-to-Sea Trail? How was it created? Who were the first people to hike the whole thing? And who would hike all 1,175 miles of it today? In this premiere episode, host Jeremy Markovich talks to...

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A Preview of Away Message: Season 4

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - April 07, 2020 17:45 - 5 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
In the latest season of Our State's podcast, we take a trip down North Carolina's Mountains-to-Sea Trail. All 1,175 miles of it.

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Staying Calm In A Scary Place (Re-Release)

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - March 18, 2020 16:21 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
A replay of Season 1, Episode 3, entitled "As High As You Can Get." It's the story of a man who climbs to the top of 2,000-foot-tall television broadcast towers to change the light bulbs, and how he remains calm in an environment that most of us would consider to be frightening.

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S3 E8: The Rookie

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - November 21, 2019 10:00 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
Jeff Postell was a 21-year-old police officer when he made an arrest in the middle of the night in a small North Carolina town. That arrest ended a five year manhunt for the Olympic Park Bomber, Eric Rudolph, and changed Postell's life in an instant. In this season finale, we track him down to f...

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S3 Bonus: Moving To Mayberry

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - October 22, 2019 00:55 - 10 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
What do outsiders see when they look at North Carolina? In this bonus episode, host Jeremy Markovich turns to The Andy Griffith Show for answers, and talks to a woman who worked on the series, then moved to the real-life town that the fictional Mayberry was based on.

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S3 E7: An Island Of Your Own

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - October 01, 2019 09:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
Davis Island wasn’t always an island. In the early 1900s, a hurricane cut a path through a peninsula that stuck out into Core Sound, separating a stately home from the mainland. Years later, a man achieved his childhood dream of living in that home. What he found was peace and beauty, and a lo...

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S3 E6: Searching for Squatch In All The Wrong Places

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - September 13, 2019 09:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
A New Yorker named Stephen Barcelo moved to a small town in northeastern North Carolina. Then he started seeing ghosts. Then bigfoot showed up. In this episode, we visit Littleton, go on a search for a hard-to-find creature, and find out what it really means to believe. Sign up for our newslett...

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S3 E5: The Concert on Powder Horn Mountain

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - August 28, 2019 09:00 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
Curtis Johnson fell in love with music while growing up in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. But when he gave up his job as a disc jockey to support his family, he held on to his dream. Now, he puts on small house-style concerts in an out-of-the-way place, and the shows keep everyone coming back for m...

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S3 E4: How To Get To Space

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - July 19, 2019 10:00 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
Christina Koch was once a kid growing up in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Now, she's living on the International Space Station. In this episode, we go back to school to find out how she turned her dream of becoming an astronaut into reality. Some audio provided by: Houston, We Have A Podcast. ...

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Replay: What Once Was Lost

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - July 10, 2019 10:00 - 21 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
From Season 1: A trip to a cemetery that's only reachable by boat reveals a story about progress, a national park, promises made, and promises broken. Along the way, we meet the woman who kept hope alive, and kept a sacred spot from being forgotten.

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S3 E3: Stop Making Cents

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - May 24, 2019 10:00 - 30 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
A woman from Mooresville, North Carolina became Mecklenburg County’s first black nurse. Then she became a prolific and well-respected artist. Along the way, she got President Franklin D. Roosevelt to sit for her, and the relief sculpture she created looks very similar to the likeness that’s on t...

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S3 E2: A Rescue In The Linville Gorge

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - May 07, 2019 10:00 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
On May 7, 2016, a man fell hundreds of feet down a mountainside, and ended up in a treacherous spot in North Carolina’s most rugged place. This is the story of a rescue that took hours and a recovery that took months, one that shows how unforgiving the wilderness can be, even for experienced hik...

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S3 E1: Symbolism

North Carolina Rabbit Hole - April 15, 2019 10:00 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 281 ratings
In 2001, some state lawmakers were engaged in a less-than-sweet debate: Which berry should be named the official berry of North Carolina? We tracked down the teacher and fourth-graders who started it all with a class project and got a lot more than they bargained for. Plus, meet the former state...

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