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Hosted by Ruben Navarrete and author/pastor Tri Robinson, The Journey of Gratitude is a deep-dive conversation centered around Tri’s book, A Journey of Gratitude: Traversing Four Seasons of Life. Together, Ruben and Tri go beyond the pages of the book to explore the profound, sometimes messy, and always miraculous ways that God directs our paths. Part memoir and part spiritual retrospective, this podcast is a guide for anyone looking back at where they've been to better understand where God is leading them today.
Journey of Gratitude — Episode 2 (Transcript)
Hosts: Ruben Navarrete & Tri Robinson · Runtime: ~31 min Cleaned and speaker-labeled from the Opus Clip transcript. Spots marked ⚑ are worth checking against the audio. Fixed throughout: "Try" → Tri, "Navarrette" → Navarrete, "Maywest" → Mae West, "Wahi Mountains" → Owyhee Mountains.
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Ruben: …to the Journey of Gratitude podcast, hosted by Tri Robinson and Ruben Navarrete. All right — so in the early chapters of your book, there's a lot of stories of flying, aviation, your plane. Take me back to how it is that you discovered aviation.
Tri: Well, my dad — my… sorry. Better start this again, yeah?
Ruben: No — go.
Tri: My dad, who I really admired — he was a torpedo bomber pilot in the South Pacific during World War II. He had crashed — he had a full load of torpedoes, and his plane blows up on his final, coming into the aircraft carrier. As it hits the water, it blows him out. He hits his ejection, but his Mae West — his life jacket — only inflates halfway, and he's, like, half dead in the water. His crew dies, and a destroyer picks him up. And why he loved flying so much after that — but he just loved flying. He soloed in a J-3 Cub on skis in Fairbanks, Alaska, probably in the late '30s. He goes to the University of Alaska, and gets his pilot's license. The war breaks out — Pearl Harbor. And he comes home and goes to flight training, and he just loves flying.
As a kid, I remember he had a friend who had an old J-3, and we had that old ranch up in the mountains — they'd go up there and fly, and land in a pasture there. I had seen pictures of him — this is maybe when I was barely born, I don't know. And there was just something about it. He just loved flying. So I grew up hearing all these stories — flying stories, and the adventure of it. And for some reason — maybe because I was his son — I just had this big longing for adventure.
But at the same time, I really had a problem with school. I had dyslexia, which nobody understood — the word wasn't even around then. They just thought I couldn't read, or I didn't apply myself hard enough. They just thought I wasn't smart, you know?
Ruben: Yeah — they didn't have a name for it back then.
Tri: No. So I grew up with that, and there were certain things I just couldn't do. Math was hard. Foreign language was impossible, for some reason. So I'm in high school — now, I'm a good athlete. I'm a runner, a distance runner, team captain of the cross-country team, so I was achieving some things. It wasn't that school was horrible — I tried hard, and I did okay, but I wasn't a great student. I loved hunting and fishing and doing stuff with my dad — that's why I think I ended up loving the mountains and country so much.
But anyway, it was actually his idea. I was in high school, 16 years old, and he says, "Tri, you ought to get your pilot's license. You know, maybe you might want to be a pilot someday." Because in those days, flying was more of an athletic sport than it was instruments and all that stuff.
Ruben: Oh, right, right.
Tri: I never had anticipated what modern-day flying would be like. But flying by the seat of your pants was kind of what I did. So at 16, I soloed — somehow passed. That was the hardest part, passing my written test — just struggling, you know. Life was a struggle. But I excelled at flying. I found that it became very natural to me, because in those days you could fly more by feel.
Ruben: It was not so instrument-heavy driven, as you were saying.
Tri: Yeah — especially a private license wasn't, anyway. Later, when you tried to get instrument ratings and things, it became a different thing.
Ruben: Now, there's a story in the book — I think it was your first solo flight — where you were talking to the radio and you asked permission to land the tower, or something like that. Tell that story — it's great. But before you get to that story: you know my son Evan — he's just soloed his first time, and I've listened to him practice, now with AI and computers and flight simulators.
Tri: Yeah — I didn't have any of that.
Ruben: No, you didn't have any of that. But they can actually practice talking to the towers, and it's real language — it sounds like a real person on the other side. And I'll sit in there and listen to him and think, "My gosh, how in the world do you do that? How do you talk to the tower?" Because that just seems so nerve-wracking. It's like a different language, a different scripting, a different way of talking.
Tri: Well, first of all, in those days there was very little talking to the tower. In fact, you could get away with flying all the way across the country — which I did — with no radio in the plane.
Ruben: So tell that story.
Tri: So anyway — my flight instructor… I had just turned 17-ish, or I was almost 17, and my flight instructor took me out for a regular lesson. Like, "We're going to have a lesson today," and I thought everything was good. As long as he was there, I was good — I knew I wasn't going to crash if he was there. So we go out, and I'm using the radio, and I'm talking to the tower to get to the right runway. And they give me permission, and we take off, and we fly around, and I shoot a landing — and it's a perfect landing. Like, perfect. I come in and I go, "Yeah, that was great." And then all of a sudden my instructor says, "Pull the plane over."
Now — this was Van Nuys Airport, in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California.
Ruben: A little different — maybe a little more rural than it is now.
Tri: It was orange groves.
Ruben: You wouldn't be soloing out of Van Nuys now.
Tri: But still, there was a lot of airplanes there. And so I go, "Wait a minute — you're getting out?" Like, I can't believe this guy's going to get out. I just had not anticipated that.
Ruben: You just froze.
Tri: It just freaked me out. He says, "No — you're ready. You've got this." And he says, "I'm going to stand right here, and you're going to shoot three landings. I'm going to stand right here." And he had a handheld radio, so he could talk to the tower. So he tells the tower that I'm solo, and da-da-da, be prepared for me, right?
So anyway — I call the tower, I get permission to take off, and I push the throttle to the firewall, and I break ground, and I'm flying. I make this left turn and enter the flight pattern, come back downwind. I'm crossing by the tower — which is on the other side of the runway, where they can watch me — and I call in to ask permission to land, because that's what you do. The plane — I still remember today — was Cherokee Three Victor Papa. What I'm supposed to say is: "This is Cherokee Three Victor Papa, asking permission to land." Only I say… "Cherokee Three Victor Papa, this is Van Nuys Tower — asking for permission to land."
And — you've got to remember, this is a different time — these guys were quiet for a minute. It was quiet. No response. And then all of a sudden this guy comes on and he says, "Van Nuys Tower — you have permission to land." And I hear all this laughing in the background. All these guys are just hilariously laughing in the tower.
And I realized my dyslexia had just kicked in. Everything was backwards — I reversed everything. And I felt so embarrassed, humiliated. And I'm about to make my first landing, right? I'm just undone. So they get serious and tell me to go downwind and make a left turn and come in for a final. So I do. I'm coming in on my final — and you're descending, right, you have to hit the end of the runway. You can't get too high, you can't get too low, and it's all controlled not so much with your controls but with your throttle.
Ruben: And they probably didn't have the lights — the red-on-white, you're-all-right — or whatever.
Tri: No, no — they didn't have any of that. It was just raw flying. So I'm coming in, and I get low. In front of the runway — just for safety's sake — there's probably two, three hundred yards of gravel. And I had never landed on anything but a solid surface. It's nice and quiet, and I'm coming in low, and I realize — I pushed the throttle, but I'm not going to make it. I'm going to land shy of the runway. And I'm rattled because of this whole experience — the whole thing is just terrible. So I hit the gravel, and when the tires hit the gravel, it starts throwing gravel up — the wings are metal, and it starts hitting. And I think all the rivets are coming out of the wings. I think the wings are coming off. I've never heard this kind of racket and noise, and I'm embarrassed —
Ruben: You're crashing.
Tri: — and I missed the runway on my first solo flight.
Ruben: Oh, man.
Tri: And I come in — my flight instructor is standing there at the beginning of the runway, and he looks at me, and I come up and I pull up. And I'm going, "I'm getting out. I'm done. I'm out with this." And he looked at me, and I could tell — he's kind of laughing, he has a smirk on his face. And he just takes his hand and waves me on: "No. Do it again." And I'm going, "I don't want to do it again. No. Hell no. I don't ever want to do it again." In my mind, I almost killed myself — but for sure I made a fool of myself, and I know those guys in the tower are all laughing at me. It was a devastating moment, right? For a 16-, almost 17-year-old kid.
But it was a moment. It was a transitional moment in my life. That's why, when I tell this story, it really impacts me to this day. Because I realize: if I would have gotten out of that airplane that day, it would have changed the course of my life.
Ruben: Yeah — because your life had so many crazy stories, crazy adventures, which we'll talk about. After that story in the book, you say: "Through the years I've learned adventure always has a cost. There's usually an element of danger when you're pushed to do things you once believed impossible." And then a little bit later: "On this day in 1966, I was about to experience an inner war I would engage in many times throughout my life. It's a battle between inner confidence and paralyzing feelings of incompetence and inadequacy" — which I think you've talked about a lot. And that is admitting who you are, and your humanness and your weaknesses, but still pressing through.
Tri: Pressing through. But it's a choice. And I think in my life, that was the first time that I really had to make that kind of a choice. I could have just given it up — but thank God that instructor wouldn't let me get out of the plane. And so I shot two more landings after that — perfectly. And it was really the beginning of a major piece of my life. Because then I became quite a proficient pilot — a backcountry pilot after that — because it was all about feel.
Ruben: Right. And you wrote: "I could either let my learning disability take charge of me forever, or make a choice to succeed in spite of it." And you never struck me as somebody who — how do I say this — you never struck me as somebody who had the big personality and had all the answers. However, you just always had that humility to be able to move forward and press forward regardless of anything around you, and I think that's one of the things that I just admire. But I have another question about that. How was your dad influential in your makeup, in getting you through that time where you felt so inadequate? And how was that relationship? Because he was such a big person in your life. Our dads are big people in our life, and we don't always view them in the right perspective — many men idolize their fathers, if they're fortunate enough to have a dad who's a good dad. So how was your relationship with him as a teenager, as it relates to this whole subject of your confidence — and how was he as a dad growing up?
Tri: Yeah — he was a great dad. And I know a lot of people don't have that. I feel very blessed that I had such support — both parents were so supportive of me. Later, you know, my mom went skydiving with me — just because I was trying to sneak out to go skydiving without her, because I didn't think she'd let me go. Again, I was 16 at the time, and I had to have a parent permission slip to do it, and I knew she wasn't going to sign it. So — anyway, she decided to go with me. So she was amazing too.
But my dad was an achiever. He was a PhD. He was the number one educator in the United States at the time — he was principal of Beverly Hills High School. But he made every cross-country meet, every track meet.
Ruben: Really?
Tri: Yeah. I mean, he took me hunting and fishing, and invested in me. But he was an adventurer — the stories that he told me growing up, of the things that he had done, were amazing things. I remember a time — this is maybe a metaphor — he'd take me hunting, and I was too young to take a gun. At the time I was probably 10, 11 years old. And I remember walking behind him, trying to put my feet in his footprints. And — sorry. (pauses, moved) I'd have loved to be just like this guy. I wanted to be. And he never really disappointed me. And later he helped me buy this old 1944 airplane, in Idaho. Think of that — 17 years old, I have my own airplane in the state of Idaho, at a time when it was all wilderness.
Ruben: We're going to get there — which is crazy. But how did you make it? What was that transition? So you learned how to fly, you got your pilot's license — you were 17 at that time. And then you must have been coming to the end of high school, right?
Tri: I was. I graduated from high school — and my dad, there again. Because of my dyslexia and reading disability, I couldn't get entrance into most universities, mainly because I didn't have a foreign language. My German teacher in high school said, "I'll give you a passing D if you promise never to take German again."
Ruben: "Please — just get out of here."
Tri: So there was only one college that this recruiter told us about that didn't require a foreign language. It was the College of Idaho. I didn't know Idaho, Ohio, Iowa — I had no clue where Idaho was. I was in Southern California. And in those days, there's no GPS. I had a '64 Volkswagen. He gives me a Texaco road map, and circles Caldwell, Idaho on it.
Ruben: No GPS in those days — so he gives you a Texaco road map. And this is crossing several state lines, crossing the Nevada desert. In a VW.
Tri: Crossing the California desert first, and then — this was 1967. And I'm driving across Nevada for what seems like five days — but it was, like, a day. And then Eastern Oregon is a desert.
Ruben: Oh yeah. Still is.
Tri: It's desolate the whole way. And I'm lost. I actually got to Winnemucca, and there were two roads, right? The road maps weren't that great, and I wasn't sure which way to go. And I'm sitting there at this gas station, looking at this road map, and there was a girl pulled up — a little older than I was, maybe two years older or something like that. And she looked at me and she said, "There's a kid that needs help." So she goes, "Can I help you? What are you looking for?" And I said, "I'm trying to get to Caldwell, Idaho." She goes, "Well — I'm going to Caldwell, Idaho. I live there." To this day, I think this girl's an angel.
Ruben: Yeah — she probably was.
Tri: Because I'm in the wilderness, you know? Seriously — driving across Nevada in those days, there was nothing. You could drive hours. These long, straight roads. And she says, "Follow me." And so I follow her up through Oregon, over Jordan Valley, Oregon, over the Owyhee Mountains. And I remember that night — the sun was setting, and I was looking across what we know as the Treasure Valley, which was just agriculture. There was hardly any lights anywhere. You could see Boise way off. It looked like the Garden of Eden to me.
Ruben: I remember the first time I saw that — it was with you. We drove up here in the spring of 1988. Or no — maybe '89?
Tri: '88, yeah.
Ruben: And I rode with you, and Brook, and Nancy. I don't know where Kate was.
Tri: She was with us.
Ruben: Oh, she was with us? We were all crammed in that little Honda. And we crested that hill — I had decided to move to Idaho, sight unseen. And you were like, "We're going to go up for spring break." And I remember coming over that valley — it was at night — and the valley below, I could just see a few little lights out there. But here's an interesting full-circle moment for me: we stayed at the Logger Creek Inn. Remember that? On ParkCenter. Now it's apartments, but it used to be a hotel. So that was our first night in Boise. And just this last week, Evan was playing with the Blue Thunder at BSU — they invited him to play with them during halftime; he's a trumpet player. And we couldn't find parking, but they had parking there at the Logger Creek Inn for 20 bucks. And I said, "Evan — the first night I spent in Idaho was right here." And he was like, "Really?"
Tri: Here we are.
Ruben: A full-grown son — a life, 35 years later, living blessed beyond… We thought we were making a sacrifice at that time.
Tri: We all did.
Ruben: And it was far from it. We had no money when we came.
Tri: No money, yeah.
Ruben: We didn't know what the future held. That's a whole other story of the book —
Tri: It is.
Ruben: But I want to go back to a subject in here, and it ties back to your dad and also to your son. Because you had looked at your dad and his adventures — and like those of us who have the luxury of growing up with a father who has stories, we always think, "If I could be half the guy." And then recently I was looking at your son Brook's posts on Facebook — he was showing his craftiness in everything that he builds, from what he's done up at the cabin with all of those different — I mean, they're artwork.
Tri: Yeah, they are.
Ruben: The stuff he did with that wagon, and what he's doing now with the restoration of that old car you were telling me about. And he did stained glass — all this stuff. And I was like, "Wow — that so comes from you." I remember back in the day when we were planting the church: my dad was a perfectionist, and that was always very hard for me to live up to — everything had to be perfect, aligned perfect. But what I learned from you is it didn't have to be perfect — it just had to look good. And you could pump out things that weren't perfect. I remember when we made the pulpit — it wasn't perfect, but it looked really good. The reason I bring that up is the influence we have on our sons as dads — we don't recognize the importance of that. So what would you say to young men now who are raising a family, maybe stuck in suburbia, or stuck in this social media life that we have — what advice would you give them to break out of that, as dads, as leaders in their homes? Having the model of your dad, and you doing it yourself, helping your kids.
Tri: I think it's true — and my daughter's very creative too. She's amazing, the stuff she does and produces. So it's not just sons — it's sons and daughters. We're as important to daughters, equally or sometimes more so. But I think there's such a fine balance between wanting to sow into them what you want, and letting them become who they are. There's this balancing act as a parent that I think is very critical — knowing when it's okay for them to be their own person and do life their own way, and giving them the freedom, and even the blessing, to become who they are. Just as my dad — that's really the blessing I had. He allowed me to become who I was, not who he wanted me to be. I mean, he had expectations of me…
Ruben: Yeah — because he had a doctorate, right? And you had dyslexia and could hardly get through school.
Tri: Yeah — which was amazing, though. I ended up graduating from the College of Idaho with a master's degree in education — that was totally miraculous. That was a total act of God.
Ruben: Well, they didn't make you take a foreign language.
Tri: I never had to. And I've been all over the world. I've been forced into all these different language groups, all over the world, and I've been able to get by just by being me.
Ruben: And then what would you say to fathers who are raising kids in a very social-media-saturated environment, where they're getting all the wrong messages?
Tri: Yeah — that's tough. I don't really know what to say about that, because I didn't do that in any way. We raised our kids with no electricity, no TV — we were up in the mountains.
Ruben: That's the answer.
Tri: They didn't even know — well, it didn't exist, most of it. But now I see my grandkids, and my kids are dealing with their kids in that regard. But I loved raising them in nature. I think it really formed them, in many ways, into who they became. And here they are — bottom line, they both have properties connected to ours, and we're all raising cattle and grapes, and we're all doing this. But they all have their own lives. Everybody has their own vision for things. But at the same time, we're still a family. It's kind of a miracle to me.
Ruben: A miracle — but I think one that is maybe intentional but unintentional, in the meaning that many times when we're moving through life, especially as young parents, we don't have a lot of intention. It's hard to have a lot of intention when you're younger and you're raising kids and you're also trying to have a career. However, the fact that you raised them without electricity — that probably planted seeds in their childhood that germinated and flourished and brought them out here. So I do think one thing that's important for parents is to put things in their kids at very young ages, so that they can germinate over time.
Tri: Sure. Obviously, as a parent, you have to direct. You have to discipline. There's certain things — you've got to keep them on the right track, and provide for them. Go to college, whatever it is. Provide — but sort of stay out of the way, too. And not get disappointed when they're not doing what you want.
Ruben: That's really interesting that you bring that up, because I've noticed in people I've known who've had kids go wayward — maybe in their teenage years or in their twenties — they do come back. You know that passage in the Bible about raising up your kids in the way they should go, and they will return to it. I've seen that time and time again, even when all hope seemed lost. So a lesson I take from these stories is: expose your kids to certain things that you want them to grow in early in life. I remember when Evan was 13, he said he wanted to fly. So I said, "Okay — I'll get you a discovery flight," for his 13th birthday. And he just took to it. Now, it's cost a lot of money to keep him up in the air, and lessons — I've had to really figure out how to make that happen. But by getting him started early, now that's a passion of his, and he's going full steam. Well — thanks for that. That's a great discussion. I wish we had a lot more time to go into those stories — and we will, for sure.
Tri: I want to just say, too — this whole thing, the Journey of Gratitude: I named the book pretty much after I wrote it. And I just realized, the emotion of telling these stories and rethinking some of this stuff — it's a reaction to being so grateful that I did manage to overcome things. I'm so grateful for the people in my life that sowed into me and provided opportunities for me — and especially for the woman I ended up marrying, who's been with me through it all and had this great adventure with me. And so sometimes I just get overcome by it when I talk about it.
Ruben: That's a blessing to have. All right — thanks, man.
Tri: Thank you.
Ruben: See you on our next one.