Journey

Week 49 – Huntsville to Hoosier

Week 49

Last week we visited the Cloudland Canyon State Park in Georgia and visited John’s Sister Natalie and her family in Huntsville, AL.  This week we Left Huntsville and headed back through Tennessee to enjoy some whiskey and Nashville, and then on to Kentucky to explore Mammoth Cave and ultimately ended up in Hoosier National Forest across the Ohio River into Indiana.

Day 339 Mon 03/12

Today is our 13-year wedding anniversary.  We have both said many times that this adventure has reminded us of the first couple of years of marriage when you figure out the rules of the game and roles in the relationship.  That is challenging enough figuring it out the first time so to do that again while living in 220 sq ft and being together 24/7 we have developed invaluable relationship skills this year on the road.  We feel so lucky to have adventure partners for life that share the same values and passion to experience life to the fullest while we can.  Just like Jack Daniel’s, “Every day we make it, We’ll make it the best we can.”  We said our goodbyes today to Natalie, Lee, Ethan, Tila and Aly, and left Huntsville, AL.  We stocked up on groceries at the local Earth Fare before leaving town.  Turns out we left poor Cooper’s dog food and bowl at their house and we had already gone over the mountain and were on the other side of town, so we decided to just get new vs heading back over.  From Huntsville we drove to Lynchburg, Tennessee to visit the Jack Daniel’s Distillery.  We have been before, but we found out that they now do tastings with certain tours and that was not available 10 years ago when we were there last.  Plus, they have a newly designed tasting area in a barrel house that is supposed to be cool.  We were able to get on the last Angels Flight tour and tasted single barrel whiskey.  It was really good and really expensive.  Apparently, all the black soot looking stuff on all the buildings in the area are from the ethanol (the alcohol making process) and it is a like a fungus that grows  on everything.  There was someone on our tour who ended up being Christopher Redhage, part owner of the Nashville Soccer Club, and he was asking questions about sponsorship and barrel prices ($10,000-$15,000/barrel based on various taxes).  Turns out he is also a social entrepreneur and loves startups, we did not have a chance to meet him but would have been cool to pick his brain.  We came across a flock of turkeys that were roaming freely all over the property and there were a couple of males showing off their tail feathers for all the ladies in the yard…guess it is that time of year…After the tour we walked around the town square, and everything closes shop at 6pm.  We were looking for a sweet treat for our Anniversary treat and luckily the local Barrel House BBQ joint that had just closed let me in the door and sold me two slices of bundt cake smothered in Jack Daniel’s glaze…We camped at the Wiseman county park within walking distance to the distillery.  It was basically just a parking lot but it had electricity and we needed to run the heater tonight because it was going to get below freezing AGAIN and it was the cheapest in the area that was actually open (only $20).  John had downloaded the Hallmark movie, Smile as Big as the Moon, about a special education teacher that pioneered the relationship with NASA to allow kids with disabilities to attend and participate in their space camp program.  It was super inspiring and an impressive story about a teacher that advocated and fought for a population that he believed in that would not otherwise have had access to that kind of an opportunity.

Day 340 Tues 03/13

This morning we drove to Nashville to get a campsite with electricity at the Nashville Fairgrounds and walked the city from there.  We checked out the Gulch, which is a transformed neighborhood with expensive shops and trendy restaurants and cool street art  Cooper and I even waited in line with all the sheeple to get our photo taken at “the wings” mural.  We walked around the downtown honky tonks, and then walked back to the RV.  It was super cold and windy but thank goodness it was sunny.  We stopped for sweet treats to taste test a couple of bakeries along the way and both were great.  We got a lemon blueberry cup cake and a milk and honey scone for tomorrow’s breakfast at Milk and Honey and a cookie and a chocolate cardamom madeline from Dozen Bakery.   I stopped in a local home and garden store called All Seasons Gardening and Brewing Supply to get seeds for my garden when we get back home to plant in May.  The neighborhoods around the fairgrounds are transitioning with tons of development and most of it is modern compared to what exists now.  Some of it is cheap and some of it is well done.  Tonight, for dinner we made veggie ramen with bok choy, mushrooms and tofu.

Day 341 Wed 03/14

This morning we walked a few different neighborhoods in Nashville, one called 12 south, and stopped at five sisters bakery for their famous cronuts.  Everything looked sooo good I must have blacked out because I bought 4 donuts for $18….They were some of the best we have ever had and apparently they take 4 days to make and use butter from France and all the ingredients were pretty decadent but not over the top…This neighborhood also has a ton of local shops and street art…after yesterday and today we witnessed something we have not seen anywhere else we have been before, and it is all because of Instagram…there were literally lines of people to take pictures in front of murals that have gained recognition on Instagram.  We have always sought out local street art and apparently it has reached a critical mass here in Nashville which definitely changed the experience.  We did witness a similar phenomenon in Utah at Horseshoe Bend but have not seen this in for street art in any other city so far.  There were a couple of old service stations that had been turned into expensive boutique shops (Imogene and Willie sells super expensive clothing and custom jeans).  Also there was a great beer store with six packs and larger bottles, and they serve various local beer on tap and sell growlers togo too called The Filling Station.  We checked out the Germantown and East Nashville neighborhoods too by just driving through them, but we did stop for groceries at the Turnip Truck in East Nashville.  Today we are headed out of Nashville and drove to the Harvest Host winery outside of town with electricity hook up called Sumner Crest Winery.  We did the wine tasting even though they do not make wines we typically like, the tasting was free and the wine was cheap, so we felt obligated since we were using their electricity tonight.  They also had homemade pimento cheese, so we got that and a cheap bottle of wine to enjoy in the RV.  They had a classic restored 50s Chevy pickup that I want!  The woman doing the wine tasting was named Kim and she was super friendly and shared that her husband is trying to convince her to full time RV and she is not on board yet.  After the tasting we relaxed in the RV with the heater on.

Day 342 Thurs 03/15

This morning we left the winery in Tennessee and drove into Kentucky to Mammoth Cave National Park to get a campsite and hopefully sign up for one of the cave tours.  Apparently there are many different options and the Ranger asked if we were claustrophobic…and proceeded to describe how tight some of the spaces might be by starting with “imagine you were in a tube”…Nope I’m out…200 feet underground, they don’t allow food or water…and “imagine you’re in a tube!”  No thanks I’ll pass.  So, We decided to think about it and decide later what if any tour we would go on because that only left us a couple of options and they wouldn’t really be worth the money.  The park does not have cell coverage, so I wasn’t able to join my HKS book club call today.  It was a beautiful day, so we enjoyed relaxing at the campsite.  There was lots of hammock swinging, fire building/stick chewing, naps, reading, and blogging to be had.  We cooked black bean burgers and sweet potatoes on the fire for dinner.  The sunset showed off for us tonight from our campsite, and was beautiful through the bare trees.

Day 343 Fri 03/16

This morning was cold and cloudy.  We decided that I would not go on any cave tour and that John would do the longer cooler 4 hour hike in the caves instead.  I stayed with Cooper in RV and blogged.  When John got finished we enjoyed another fire and heated up the leftovers for dinner.  John said the tour was pretty cool but nothing super “WOW” like Luray Caverns in Virginia.  Just a lot of the same type of thing over and over for 4 hours.  He did enjoy Ranger John, who led the tour, and shared special tidbits of his perspective on life.  He said that he definitely felt like he was underground for 4 hours and was glad to be back in the open but that overall he was glad he was able to have seen it.  He could have chosen the wild cave tour that requires calling through tiny holes…there are over 365 miles of surveyed passageways in the cave system and they are still discovering more.  It is  twice the size of any known cave and they think there could still be up to 600 miles of unknown passageways.  The caves were formed by the slow dissolution of limestone by groundwater.  Human activities outside the park pollute the water quality and threaten the cave and its ecosystem.

Day 344 Sat 03/17

This morning we left Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky and drove into Indiana to the Hoosier National Forest.  On our way out of the park we stopped for a short hike on the Cedar Sink Trail.  The park consists of an underground cave world and an aboveground landscape of forest and light.  The hike was short but super cool up and down and around the sink hole and wildflowers were starting to bloom.  We saw some cool mushrooms on logs too.  After we left and before we headed into the forest for the next several days John wanted to get a slow tire leak looked at in our front right tire so we stopped at a tire shop along the way in Leitchfield.  The maintenance shop we found was super friendly and they plugged a couple of holes and we were on our way.  We crossed the Ohio river into Indiana and we were able to get a campsite in the German Ridge Campground, a horse camp with over 20 sites for only $8/night.  Since it has been so cold, and we have had to spend more camping money on sites with electricity this month, we are trying to find some cheaper camping options when the temps are predicted to be above freezing. This one only has pit toilets, but the campsite was super nice and near over 24 miles of trails to explore.  I will spare the dirty details of pit toilet splash potential…

Day 345 Sun 03/18

We stayed a 2nd night in the German Ridge Campground, and today once the sun came out and warmed things up a bit we hiked with Cooper on one of the trails.  It led to a small lake with giant beavers eating huge trees and big boulders with some critter burrowing holes in the rocks.  This was another really cool short hike and afterwards we enjoyed the sunshine in our hammocks.  John decided he was going to let Cooper get in his hammock with him so he wouldn’t eat sticks and puke in the middle of the night like he did the night before, and it was good for a bit until Cooper saw a squirrel and put a hole in the hammock trying to get out…John sewed up the hole hoping it will last the rest of our adventure until he can patch it at home with the sewing machine.  We had a bunch of crazy punk kids camping next to us with an offroad mazda miata and they kept blaring their music and cruising around in the car, but luckily they settled down in the evening.

This week we enjoyed a mix of city and nature, sipping Tennessee whiskey and exploring Nashville, our time in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky checking off another National Park off of our list, and then onto Hoosier National Forest in Indiana.  We are looking forward to seeing my sister Kristi next week back in Kentucky as we make our way through to Virginia.  The book John and I are reading right now called Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin is bringing great clarity to the essence of why we have chosen this radical adventure this year and how we can continue to focus our life energy and therefore our money towards the things that really matter to us in life.  We highly recommend the read that outlines “9 steps to transforming your relationship with money and achieving financial independence” to truly live more deliberately and meaningful in order to enjoy the fruits of your labor while you can.

This map below indicates our route last week from Huntsville, AL to Hoosier National Forest in Indiana.

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