Southeast Trip ~ Final Observations

By Everyone (3/8/20)

State Summaries:
Georgia is home to some of the coolest people we know. 😎

South Carolina is home to beautiful Charleston, delicious BBQ, and antebellum homes. 🏡

North Carolina might be where we find Calla after high school graduation. Graduation👩🏼‍🎓

Virginia offered us the best dwelling and the best historical experience. ⚔️ 🏨

West Virginia was filled with majestic mountains and wallpaper. ⛰ 😳

Kentucky was like being in Texas - Christianity was normal and supported. ✝️

Tennessee is filled with people that we love and fun things to do. 💞

Alabama made us appreciate human rights and the Adopt-A-Highway program. 🗑

Mississippi probably has more for us to experience.🤷🏼‍♀️

Louisiana is more than just Bourbon Street and is very culturally diverse. 🦹🏻‍♀️👨🏽‍🎨🧙🏻‍♀️🧟‍♀️🍺🍤🦪🎷🎺🥁🛳🚢🌊🌉💸📿⚔️🎊🥳🧉🎰🤹🏽🥃😳😬🙈


We are thankful for/that:
Incredible friends.
Spectacular family.
Wonderful neighbors who take such good care of our animals while we're gone.
The freedom to homeschool.
Travis' insurance business.
War veterans - from every war.
This incredible cultural, historical, and relational experience.
3 weeks of someone else making the bed for us.
3 weeks of someone else cooking for us.
3 weeks of someone else doing the dishes for us.
Oysters. (Lincoln is thankful for oysters.)
We can say we tried alligator and don't have to do that again.

Uber.
The United States history.
The African Americans who build much of our country in its infancy.
The abolition of slavery.
The civil rights movement and human rights.
We have a just and loving God.
We get to live in the United States.
We could cross every border with a honk and a wave instead of passports.
The Adopt-A-Highway program (worth mentioning again).

The residents of Minnesota make Minnesota beautiful.
We call Minnesota "home."
We stayed at our first Spanish Hotel (according to Lincoln). La Quinta. 😂
A great chiropractor - after 3,500 miles in a rented minivan we needed an adjustment.
Minimal fighting. Three weeks is a long time in such close quarters.
Our family can travel amazingly well together.

Southeast Trip Stop 11 ~ Louisiana

By Calla (3/3/20)

When you think of New Orleans, what do you think of? Bourbon Street? Maybe the WWII Museum? The French Quarter? Or the all-night bars? Well, this describes New Orleans, but not fully.

My experience in New Orleans was CRAZY. Crazy fun, crazy loud, and crazy crazy. For some, big cities just are too much, and I agree I wouldn’t live there. But for a few days it was awesome.

Let’s start with Bourbon Street. They named it perfectly, Bourbon is a whiskey. We saw many Bourbon distilleries in New Orleans. It was a little sketchy because people seemed to like their bourbon on Bourbon Street. I found out later that, during the night, Bourbon Street is rated X! Thankfully we went in the day. Our Nana and Papa Jim drove all the way from Oklahoma to join us on the last part of our trip. All the way down Bourbon Street my mom and Nana kept saying “Oh my!” and “Oh dear!”   

Next, we went to the WWII Museum. I never realized how crazy and important that war was. Wars are not my “strong suit,” but this made learning about World War 2 easier to understand than just reading books. We watched a film about the war – which was very interesting because there was a war vet behind us and I liked wondering what he remembered about the war. The museum was set up so the chairs would shake as if you were the one firing the guns. It felt like a massage chair! Also, I'm getting a new hoodie I saw with Rosie the Riveter. It’s really cute!

We did not go to an all-night bar, but we did go to a plantation focused on the history of the slaves – not the plantation owner. This was my favorite plantation yet. I really liked hearing the story from the slaves perceptive, not just a bystander.

We headed back to the hotel for our last swim in the outdoor, rooftop swimming pool. After that we packed up, got ready for dinner, and headed downstairs for our 5:30 happy hour (which was offered every night in this hotel). After dinner Parker, Nana, and I watched Hallmark and painted nails in Nana’s room, which was very fun.

God has blessed us with many incredible travels and loving people in our lives. I thank God for this 3-week trip. Although I loved this trip, I can’t wait to get home to see the rest of my family, friends, and Sarge.

Southeast Trip Stop 10 ~ Mississippi

By Parker (3/2/20)

Our time in Mississippi was very short. First we went to the beach. It was really fun but where Lincoln and I were playing STUNK. It smelled like sea gull poop. 

The sand was very interesting.  It was like white sand with black lines in it. 

We also played football and keep away at the beach. They were both really fun. Calla did not play football or keep away with us. 

We also saw some people feeding the sea gulls and there was a lote of sea gulls around the beach.

That night we ate at the Rackhouse. More shellfish. Mom’s favorite. 

I would go back to Mississippi sometime and see something else. There has to be more to Mississippi than Gulfport and shellfish. 

Southeast Trip Stop 9 ~ Alabama

By Taite (3/1/20)

“Alabama. Sweet home Alabama.” Said Willy, a true redneck to his best bud Sonny in the greatest southern drawl since Tyler Vansumeren. “Now what was you doing in Alabama, sonny?” Sonny smiled at his buddy and in an equal accent replied, “Well Willy, me and the fam was there for ‘bout a night. It was a good time.” Willy, curious about his buddy’s travels, asked, “That ain’t very helpful. What did ya do, Sonny?”  “Well, we took a look at the Crimson Tide stadium, did some learnin’ ‘bout the civil rights march that had to take place three times before the marchers could get from Selma to Montgomary, and visited the bridge where they were stopped the first two times.” Sonny took a breath then continued, “Parker had her first oyster.” “Oysters are delicious” Willy interjected. “Ain’t they?” Sonny agreed. “We all enjoyed them, ‘cept Mama (she’s lergic)…and Parker didn’t love them.  “We ate some good redfish too. That was about all we did in ‘Bama though. It was good.” Willy nodded and said “Yup, sounds like ‘twas a good time, Sonny.”

Southeast Tour Stop 8 ~ Tennessee

By Kate (2/27/20)

Fabulous Friends and Fun

Southwestern Company is where it all began. I don’t mean this trip. I’m talking our lives together. If there was no Southwestern Company, there’d be no “Travis & Kate.” No Taite, Calla, Lincoln, or Parker. No farm. No insurance company. No galavanting around the United States. I might not even be a Christian. Selling books during our college summers completely changed our lives. If we were going to be in Tennessee, we were going to share Southwestern with our kids. 

Travis scheduled an appointment with Dan Moore, our friend and current president of Southwestern Advantage. Dan took us (well, really our kids) on a tour of the building. We saw the “Wall of Greats” and many of our friends’ photos hanging on the wall. Much of Southwestern has changed, but the foundation of hard work and positive attitude remains the same. We were also able to visit with author, speaker, encourager, and head of Southwestern public relations, Trey Campbell. He blessed us by sharing his vision and a few of his published books with us. I can envision at least one of our children being involved with Southwestern Companies. We’ll probably be back here someday. 

Travis’ Executive Admin, Liz Manning, and her best friend Olivia met us for dinner at a hip Mexican spot called Taco Mamacita's  We spent the whole time eating delicious food and talking about the Bible (one of my favorite subjects). Then they took us to Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams for dessert. Brown Butter Almond Brittle. Need I say more? We don’t have Jeni’s in Minnesota. We might have to come back to Nashville just for some ice cream. 

Tony and Tessa Ripley moved to Nashville last spring with their beautiful kiddos, Cael and Elise. We sold books with both Tony and Tessa. They were in our wedding and we were in theirs. We traveled to Israel with them a couple of years ago. Needless to say, we go way back. We love this family. We were blessed to spend the day with them Saturday. All the boys (including dads) ran around at a park and played soccer for hours. The girls had their own games that were overwhelmingly imaginative and I have no idea what they were doing. Tessa and I talked (and talked and talked - typical for us). Tessa prepared a delicious vegan lunch. Eventually we all became tourists. We visited the Parthenon, Music Row, and Downtown Franklin. We planned to eat dinner at a pub with live music but that didn’t work out so well. 🙄 So we ate at a Greek reataurant. I think that was better anyway. When the music is too loud ya can’t hear each other. The kids had already made a plan to swim at our hotel’s indoor pool. The management had to kick us out of the pool area to close it down at 10:00. We were sad to have our evening come to an end. Looks like we’ll have to come back. 

Taite’s very first nanny, Nicole (Price) Rodriguez and her husband Javier live in East Nashville. Nicole sold books with Travis. Another friend of ours, Katie (Pelligrini) Thornberry and her husband Brandon also live in East Nashville. (Katie was one of my favorite book selling roommates!) Good news, these two families both go to church together. We wanted to see them and we wanted to worship the Lord. How perfect! We met them for service then went our for pizza at Boombozz. After worshipping, eating, talking, and playing it was time to head to Alabama. We missed so many touristy things in Tennessee. We’ll probably have to go back someday. 

EDIT: on Sunday afternoon, March 1st, we left Nashville for Alabama. On Monday night East Nashville - and the establishment where we ate pizza (Boombuzz) was destroyed by a tornado. Please join us as we pray for our friends and all the residents and business owners of East Nashville. 

Top: The East Nashville corner where Boombuzz is located before the tornado. 

Bottom: Same corner after the tornado.