Nashville Inspiration And The Big 4

Jeff and I are on a two-week road trip for business at the moment. We are making stops in Nashville, Louisville, Indianapolis, Elkhart, back to Indy, St. Louis and home to Arkansas.

Since we sold our Edge and are having work done on the Domani we are resorting to hotel stays for this trip. After traveling in an RV for the better part of 8 months and now traveling via hotels, I have to say I prefer our RV much better (of course I would).

Franklin, TN

While in Nashville, we had the privilege of having dinner with one of our favorite authors, Dan Miller , and his lovely family. He has authored books that have been very influential in our lives. 48 Days to the Work You Love, No More Dreaded Mondays, Wisdom Meets Passion, are just a few.

The Author and The Artist. Dan and Joanne Miller

48 Days To The Work You Love

Jeff and I attended one of his Coaching With Excellence weekend workshop 3 years ago which was instrumental in getting us to where we are today…working in the RV industry and traveling this beautiful country both at the same time. OUR DREAM!

Dan challenged us to not think of options in terms of “either/or” but “this AND that”. “AND” is a powerful word when thinking of options in life. I’ve always thought in terms of…you have to do either this OR that. But Dan challenged us to think in terms of…why not do this AND that. Why can’t you pursue your dreams of traveling in an RV AND work at the same time? It was an interesting question and one we found the answer to by working in the RV industry.

We are so thankful to Dan and thankful to have the opportunity to share our appreciation in person!

One last thing about Franklin, TN…

We discovered a new-to-us restaurant called First Watch. They serve breakfast, brunch and lunch. First Watch has a limited menu with rotating items and everything is super fresh and super yummy. Our favorite was the Kale Tonic (Kale, cucumber, lime, apple) and Day Glow (Carrots, orange, lemon, ginger). Oh so good!

OMG…Kale Tonic at First Watch cafe

Louisville, KY

Our next stop was in Louisville, KY. We’ve been to Louisville several times, but never long enough to explore. So we headed to the riverfront area of Louisville early on a Sunday morning to go for a run.

Part of Louisville’s riverfront is a pedestrian and bike bridge called, The Big Four Bridge. It connects Kentucky with Indiana in less than a mile over the Ohio River.

The Big Four Bridge was originally constructed by the Louisville and Jefferson Bridge Company who started construction in 1888. The construction of the bridge was not without it’s challenges. After several accidents and deaths during construction, the bridge was completed in 1895. Unfortunately by then the Louisville and Jefferson Bridge Company was broke. It was sold that same year to the Indianapolis based Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, also known as the Big Four Railroad.

Crossing the Big Four Bridge

Nice bridge

A long way down!

The Big Four Bridge fell into disused by 1968 and portions of the bridge were being dismantled by 1969.

In 1990 a proposal was made to convert the dilapidated bridge to a bike and pedestrian bridge as part of the Louisville Waterfront Park project. After millions of dollars the Big Four Bridge was re-opened in 2013 to people and bikes. We really enjoyed our run here!

Elkhart, IN

We headed further north to Elkhart Indiana making a brief stop over in Indianapolis to say hi to my college girlfriend Sherry. Sherry hiked the Rim2Rim with us last year.

In Elkhart we got our first look at our new-to-us RV, the Domani. I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed. After our discussions with the seller and having our inspection, our expectations were a bit higher than the RV we walked into. Our “hardly camped in” RV had a lot of furniture ware and lingering cigarette smoke that let us know that it had been lived in more than had been disclosed.

The new rolling crib will be good as new…we hope!

Loving our floor plan!

It is going to be a bit more of a project than we had anticipated. But we love the floor plan, size and quality…the rest can be dealt with pretty easily. Thank goodness we bought this thing right!

Next week MasterTech RV will start on the biggest project, which is to take off the roof, repair the damage, run electrical and conduit and put on a new roof membrane. Our second priority will be to replace all the flooring in order to help with the smell.

We have a $20,000 budget for our entire project so we will see how much our roof and flooring costs us before we make plans for the rest.

Indianapolis, IN

One of Jeff’s bucket list items is to run a marathon in each state. So while we were passing through Indiana Jeff noticed that Carmel, Indiana was having a marathon. This was his 7th marathon state.

Jeff finishing the Carmel IN Marathon…his 7th state!

While Jeff was at the marathon I went with my friend Sherry to a retirement party that one of her running friends was throwing for herself.

This was the wackiest and most fun retirement party I have ever been to.

It started at 6am for a 11 mile run or 7am for a 5 mile run (you choose) followed by slippers and coffee mixed in with a 10 minute core workout, 10 minute weight workout, 20 minute message, then hot tub soak, sauna and brunch. All before 10AM.

It was so fun that it was decided by the group that she needed to throw a quarterly retirement party for herself going forward!

We have one more leg on our journey home. We are looking forward to getting home and staying in one spot for more than 2 nights in a row.

Keep in touch!