I Learned How Much Life Fits In 24 Hours

I didn’t expect a 24-hour lesson to smack me in the face, but it did: wake up in Maine and go to bed in Texarkana, Arkansas, and you realize how much life can fit inside one day. I’m running hot lately, riding deadlines, feeling the walls close in, and trying to claw my way back to solid ground. Then my wife says the simplest thing that changes everything: go. Take the break. Get out of the foxhole for a minute.

So we do something ridiculous. Brian Palmolo and I fly out, hit Houston, Uber down to Navasota, buy a 30-ish foot RV, and point it toward home with almost no plan beyond staying flexible. Along the way we deal with the realities everyone’s talking about: travel stress, TSA chaos, and the cost of the road. But we also run into the best parts of America: helpful people, strange surprises, and the kind of moments you can’t schedule.

We end up camping at the Texarkana fairgrounds during a barrel racing championship, getting an unreal view over the Mississippi River from the Memphis Bass Pro pyramid, and living that Broadway night in Nashville where strangers turn into instant friends. We even pull off the sketchy “act like you belong” move to catch a few hours of sleep near the Tennessee Titans stadium before we roll out at 4 a.m. Then it’s Smoky Mountains views, Gatlinburg energy, a real business opportunity for Loud Proud American, and one personal moment that hits me hard: spotting a bald eagle and feeling like my dad is still riding with me.

If you’ve been feeling burnt out, stuck, or boxed in, let this be your nudge toward a factory reset. Listen now, then subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a shove, and leave a review so more people find the story. What’s one “do it anyway” trip you’ve been putting off?

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Transcript

A 24 Hour Wake Up Call

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I recently learned a critical lesson about what can be done in one day's time. When you wake up in Maine and you go to bed in Texarkana, Arkansas, you realize you can get a lot done in 24 hours. That's right. That is On Tap Today on Share the Truggle Podcast as I take you behind the scenes in the most epic, ridiculous road trip I have ever been on in me life. Let me tell you something. Everybody struggles. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. But the choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. If you find strength in the struggle, then this podcast is for you. If you have a relationship that is comfortable with uncomfortable conversations, uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you, and they build you. Most disagreements, they stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be. Oh, it is true. It is damn true. I am ultra excited to be back with you because today is episode 299. 99, and I'm feeling oh so fine. You believe it? One episode to go till we hit the even 300. I gotta think of something special. But if it's true to my fashion, I will wait to the very last minute, and you'll hear me saying the same thing I'm about to say. Oh well, it's Tuesday night, it's quarter past ten, and here we are again, just trying to get this done and get it in before the old deadline. Because it seems to be how I live my life lately, just off the seat of my pants, running up against every single deadline possible. And I'm gonna be honest, there comes a time in life when you feel a little bit run down, when you feel a little bit burnt out, when you feel just a touch overwhelmed, when you look around and everything seems to be closing in on you. It is a tough time to survive. And lately I have felt the walls closing in. Lately I feel like I'm running the ragged edge of burning the candle on both ends, just trying to make a rhyme, a reason, trying to make sense, and hopefully someday, somehow, praying to make some dollars and cents. That is the journey that I've been on. I don't know if each and every one of you have been on that same struggle bus as me, but if you are, I want to give you that shot of hopium, that dose of optimism, and say, hey man, I think it's gonna be alright. Let's just weather this storm, and on the other side of this storm, I think we're not only gonna get back to our norm, we're gonna go above and beyond it. We're gonna achieve those wild dreams we have for ourselves. It's coming. This is just a test. You gotta suffer through some dark days to make sure you really, really want it. And uh for myself and my business and my family, we have been fighting the good fight. And I'm not really gonna peel back the onion too much today. That's a conversation for another day, but I can tell you that these battles can almost beat you. They can almost defeat you, they can get you damn near down and out. But you do everything you can to claw and scratch and pull yourself out. And that is the step in the process that I am at today, boys and girls. I am scratching, I am clawing, and I'm pulling myself up. So allow this to be a battle cry for those of you that are just like me. Allow this to be the mantra that pulls us through, that gets us from the darkness to the light. Please know you are not the only one tonight that is kicking and screaming, scratching and clawin', pulling yourself out. But the truth is, when we are bold enough to say it, we will leave success and clues on our trail to success. And if we are bold enough and courageous enough to share these things that we are going through, this this deep dark battle and struggle that we find ourselves pulling ourselves through, there is safety and comfort in knowing that other ones and and friends and loyal ones are in the foxhole with you. So, to those of you that are battling with me, I am here with you. I am by your side, and I too sell she you through. You understand? We're gonna get there. It's gonna happen. I didn't expect that little wake up call, freaking uh motivational smack your your your mama and save the drama and the trauma conversation. I didn't expect that, but it really goes hand in hand with today's show, as I said to you, and you really never know just how much you can get done in a day until you wake up in Maine and you go to bed in Texarkana. Okay? The reason why I'm connecting these two dots, the reason why I'm saying what I'm saying right here is I just went on the most ridiculous, miraculous road trip of my lifetime, and I was encouraged to do so in the middle of the foxhole, in the middle of this tried and true struggle that I try to pull myself and you out of. My wife said to me, You need this break. Just take it. That's where we're gonna take it today. Last week I left y'all with a little cliffhanger talking about sharing some road trip news, some crazy stories that were about to come, because I knew the journey that I was about to embark on. Last week, during our episode, I gave a major thank you and kudos to Chris Ryu for bringing me to Boston to go into the garden, to watching Monday Night Raw, to having an absolute blast of a time to unplugging to unwind. As a man from Maine, I doesn't really truly like to travel to Massachusetts very often. More specifically, I don't find myself in Boston all too often. This old boy of yours had to go to Boston two times in one week. Because if y'all remember my journey to Daytona, if you remember my two-year streak of going to Daytona Bike Week, I have been accompanied by a great friend and brother of mine, Brian Palmolo, Mr. BP and his boy Zach. We have gone to Daytona together. On the most recent trip, the one I recapped a few weeks ago, Brian was uh mesmerized by a recreational vehicle. He went ahead and bought himself an RV. And Brian and Zach drove the RV home, and I drove Brian's uh truck with Chris's trailer and all the LPA merchandise loaded down, and we headed on home, and uh it was a tremendous little adventure. It was the worst road trip home I've ever experienced. It was like the longest ride ever of our lives. It was crazy. I mean, it was beautiful at times, but crazy because we had all the construction, all the traffic, all the nonsense you could imagine. But since that little road trip extravaganza, Brian has come home with this RV, excited to get on the road and to use it. And uh his father-in-law uh feels the same way. So he started shopping for an RV, and Brian said to me, Hey man, if my father-in-law picks up an RV and he buys you an airplane ticket, would you fly out with me to drive that some bitch home? And I said, Yeah, man, if I'm not on the road, you can book me in. Well, a couple weeks go by and Brian calls me and says, You still down for that rodeo? And I said, Hell yeah, I'm down for that rodeo. And then he called me back again and he said, Hey man, I'm about to book us two tickets, but I gotta say something to you. We're not going to Florida. We're going to Texas. And I said, Hey man, I love me some Texas. I don't love me a ride home from Texas. I've never driven home from Texas. I imagine it's a hell ride to drive home from Texas. But if that's what we need to do, that's what we'll do. Now, let me just reserve my man card for a minute. I didn't say over the phone, yeah, thousand percent. I'm in. I need to check with the wife, okay? Let's just put that out there. But this is how we connect the stories, because I said to my wife, hey man, Brian wants to do this. I know this is the most convenient time. And before I could even mention it, she said, go. Just go. Why are you asking me? Just go. And I said, What do you what do you mean? I was just gone for two weeks, and uh I'm gonna be gone again, and and this is a horrible time. I'm not making any money, and we could be at an event, and there's these things that we should be doing, and she said, That doesn't matter to me. I think that you need to go on this trip. Number one, you owe it to Brian, and I and I said, I agree a thousand percent. That's why I I want to do it, because no matter what the situation and circumstance is, I owe it to Brian, I should be there. And she said, You owe it to him and you need to be there for him, but you also owe it to yourself. You need to get away without responsibility, you need to get away without an event, you need to get away without the pressure of being successful at an event, you need to just get away. And she said, On your way home, where you're coming through, what's your path? How's it gonna go? What are you gonna do? And I said, Well, I do believe we're gonna drive right through Tennessee, and she said, If you're telling me that you're gonna get a free ride to your two favorite places in the entire country, Texas and Tennessee, then I don't know why you're standing here asking me. And I said, Well, maybe I think I do know why I asked you to marry me because we are perfect. So that's how that went. Well, as y'all know, you've been watching the news, you've been living life, you realize this is the worst possible time to travel. When we left last week, this is when um TSA is going without pay, thanks to the Democrats shooting down any deal possible and then deciding to go on Easter vacation. So um TSA lines out the door each and every day, and the highest gas prices we paid in recent time. So you factor all those things and you say, hey man, we're gonna fly to Texas, the possibility of delays and canceled flights, long lines and the TSA lines. You think about driving an RAV home from Texas, paying the fuel prices all along the way, and you say, This really doesn't add up. But not much of my life adds up, and not much of it makes a whole lot of sense. You just get out there and do it, and uh that's kind of what we did. So on Monday, I went to Boston for Monday Night Raw. Oh, let's just say last weekend I went on Thursday to Bangor to the University of Maine, Orino. Came home Sunday in a snowstorm, Monday, head out to Boston for Monday Night Raw, and then on Thursday at 2 in the morning, I'm getting up to head back to Boston. So I'm just gonna give y'all a little synopsis. I'm just gonna bring you guys, you know, beneath the sheets in a little road trip extravaganza. I'm not gonna give you all the details, more of an outline, because there might be more details at another time. But I want to take you inside the craziest road trip I've ever been on, uh, and the one of the most just wonderful trips that I think I could have ever imagined. So let's say a few things first. Number one, you gotta be flexible to post something like this off. Nothing's gonna really go truly your way. You're not gonna have the opportunity to plan each and every day. You can't really live by a schedule or a guideline as to what you gotta get done each and every day. So you gotta be flexible. You don't know where you're gonna start, where you're gonna stop, where you're gonna finish, where you're gonna be. You just gotta roll with it. You understand me? That's how these trips work. You gotta have yourself a tag team partner that feels the exact same way you do. You gotta be low maintenance heroes all the way through. I'm gonna tell you that to be the true. You understand what I'm saying? This just is what it is. It's gonna take a real savage fellow road dog. Y'all gotta be road warriors. You gotta be ready to go. This trip, not for the faint of heart. This trip, not for most people that you know. You understand? That's just the truth to be told. You gotta also come to grips where if you find something that you really truly love and want to do, you probably ain't gonna spend a lot of time doing it because you ain't got much time to do it. You understand? That's the kind of trip that we went on. So, let's start this with old B man sending me a text message at about 1 45 in the morning on um Thursday morning saying he's leaving his house. I get up, start getting ready, and I'm standing outside in the rain with my with my book pack and my carry on, just ready to roll. Brian shows up with a rent of car, I jump in and we say, Son of a bitch, we're about to get this going. Okay? Now, in true fashion, when Brian's rolling down the road on the old satellite radio, Waylon Jennings pops on. Perfect road trip scenario that's just setting us, setting us up, letting us know this is the way it's about to go. I get in the car and we head out. We roll through Boston, get to the airport, get the car over to the rent a car location, drop that sucker off, hitch on to uh one of the buses, and then get ourselves over to I believe it's Logan Airport in Boston. And uh I'm gonna give a shout out to TSA in Boston because we made it all the way through the check line in maybe 30 minutes, 40 minutes, something like that. Certainly in under an hour, we were standing at our gate ready to rock and roll. Everything there, super smooth. No delays, no issues, no craziness along the way. Get on the plane, pretty smooth ride from Boston all the way to H Town. That is Houston, Texas. Okay? Now, Houston, Texas just happens to be one of the airports that I was seeing all week long on Fox News because it's one of the airports that had the longest lines. They're saying it was five or six hours to make it through TSA. They also instructed a lot of federal agents, government agents, ICE agents to be at the airports helping out. And I'm gonna tell you it was pretty damn cool, and it felt pretty damn safe to get off the plane in Houston, and you saw so many federal agents. You saw so many ICE agents, you saw just crime stiffened dogs, you saw everything, and they were just making people feel safe. We were getting directions from federal agents. Everybody was greeting to you, talking to you, helping you through, getting you through. You felt safe, and then and and you also um, I don't even know the best word to to describe it, but you just felt happy. You just you were just happy. You were happy to see the people that were going above their way, putting themselves on the line to get out of their comfort zone to do something different to help um, you know, brighten people's days because they're here trying to make the best of a negative situation. So for these folks that are getting such a horrible rap on the news, to see them, you know, pointing me in directions, telling us where to go, shooting the breeze and chatting with everybody, just making you feel comfortable, making you feel safe. I think that's the kind of image that you really want to see portrayed about these agents. And I thought that was pretty incredible. They just stepped up and took care of business. My first mission was to try to make it on uh Fox News when we arrived in Houston, but we were unable to locate the uh news feed, so that didn't happen. Outside we go. I think we arrived in Houston, it was about 87 degrees out, a little humid, a little humid for the boy, but it is what it is. Uh we then hitched an Uber ride and the Uber picked us up, and we went about an hour and a half south to Nova Soda, Texas, which is the blues capital of Texas. We went there to a great little RV store. I can't remember the name of the RV store, but I should plug it on here. If I find it, I will put it in the show notes because they were great people, they were super friendly. Uh, met us right at the door, instantly was talking about how much he liked my apparel. I told them what I was doing, what I was selling. We left them with uh stickers and and information and all that, but they all greeted us and were super friendly. There's a very sweet uh lady at the door, this is sweet uh mamma of a lady that I was just chatting it up with, and it just made you feel really at home. We took the RV for a test ride, everything checked out, and um me and Brian left with this this RV, this I think 30-ish, 31-foot RV, really nice ride. Uh, we left Texas, uh Nova Soda, Texas, and my plan, I had a couple conditions along the road that said, hey man, I would like to find a honky tonk in Texas and Tennessee. I want brisket in Texas, I want my ass in a bar stool, and I want to hear some live music. And I feel the same way about the state of Tennessee. If I can get those two things for me, then I'm gonna feel complete. And I said, we're gonna start the journey through Texas, and it's taking me through a part of Texas that I've never been to before, and I thought we were gonna shoot more towards the Dallas Fort Worth area. I was gonna try to plant us into the stockyards for the night, um, check out some rodeos and live the good life, and uh reach out to some extended fam that I've got in uh Shreeport, Louisiana, Spence and Rachel. But uh the map kind of took us in a different direction. We were so hungry and looking for something to eat, we really wasn't paying attention, but we were also just mesmerized by the roads we were on. We ended up on this um four-lane, interstate, two lanes on each side, just a 70 mile-an-hour road, gorgeous farmland, cattle and horses as far as the eye can see. And you just spent time between being excited and hooting and hollering and screaming your head off to just being dead silent, just taking in the beauty of all that was around you, the massive, wide-ranging farmland, or just taking it all in. And somewhere along the line, we realized that uh we were a little bit off course and uh the the direction we were going to go into really wasn't the direction we were headed into, but it was still headed in the right direction. You understand what I'm saying? It just wasn't according to our plan, but you roll with your plan at this moment because Brian says, Hey man, I'm a little sorry, but I don't think we're gonna find the bar stools and the barbecue in Texas because we're about to leave the great state of Texas already. And yeah, that was disappointing, but you roll with the punches, you know what I'm saying? And then I realized I got a message from Rachel, and then I realized, oh shit, we're rolling into Louisiana. We are so close to Spence and Rachel, and I just said, I wonder if I could surprise him at his dealership where he works. And I looked it up and they were already closed, and by the time we pulled over, and I shot a message, uh they were already on with their evening plan, so that didn't it didn't work out. The thought process rolled by of maybe just pulling into their driveway type of scenario. But I said, hey man, let's just another day, I guess, right? You roll the punches again. So on day one, we got up in Boston, we woke up in Maine, we drove to Boston, we flew to Houston, we Ubered to Nova Soda, we got on the RV and we rode through Texas, we rolled through part of Louisiana, and we were rolling through Arkansas, and we set ourselves with two goals. The first one said if I could go through Hazen, Arkansas, maybe, maybe we could end up on a live PD, and then we could sell some t-shirts that way. So we tried Fox News and we tried live PD. Didn't work out. Smooth sailing all the way through. We set a final destination of Texar Cana, Arkansas. We looked it up and found some places that maybe some honky tonk type dinner spots, and so this is where we're gonna go. Now, as we're rolling into Texar Cana, I see a sign for a state fair, the state fair uh fairgrounds for the Four States Fair. And I said, Hey man, if we can roll by that, I want to see what that looks like. Maybe this is a good place for us someday. And we start rolling by the fairgrounds, and then as we approach the fairgrounds, I see a bunch of trailers, and I said, Oh man, either there's a rodeo here tonight or there's a horse race here tonight. Either there's some some barrel racing or there's some rodeoing going on. And uh I started looking at the signs and trying to figure it out, and I saw the horse trails and I said, Oh, baby, I know there's gotta be a horse race here tonight. And then my my country redneck senses started tingling. The roots and the connection of what I do at home started tingling. Thinking about my time announcing for NBHA, my time being at all these barrel races, and then connecting the dots with all my time spent at all these fairgrounds. We pulled over for dinner and I started making a plan, and I realized there was a a um barrel racing championship, the senior world championship for barrel racing was taking place at those fairgrounds. And I said, Brian, I got a feeling that we can get ourselves in there. I got a feeling we can camp right there. So we rolled up, everything was kind of uh closed off. I thought maybe we could sneak in with a dead and night, but we couldn't. It was kind of late, but they had uh security at the gate. We rolled up, I jumped out and started talking to security and just asking them what was going on and probing around. And then I said, Hey man, um, is it is it free to camp? Like, are we able to camp here? We just bought this RV and we're driving from Texas to Maine. And he said, Well, it's kind of expensive to camp here every night, but let me let me take a look. Like, what do you what are you trying to do? And I said, Hey, it's late, we just want to plug into some power, turn On this RV, make sure everything works, spend the night in the morning. I'm gonna watch a little bale racing and I'll be out of here before noon. Well, he checked with his friend and he came back and said, How's 40 bucks? And we said, Oh hell yeah. So for 40 bucks, they brought us on to the fairgrounds, the state fair, the four state fair in Texas Arcana, Arkansas, and they set us up. We plugged in power and turned on the air conditioning and we drifted off into a beautiful sleep. And we woke up at the state fairgrounds in Arkansas. We woke up to barrel racing. Let me just spell this out to all y'all. When you have a Thursday that starts at two in the morning, you drive from Maine to Boston, you turn in your rent a car, you fly from Boston to Houston, you Uber from Houston to Nova Soda, you buy an RV, you drive through all of Texas, part of Louisiana, roll through Arkansas to Texas Arcana, and you spend the night at the state fair. All that in less than 24 hours. That's incredible. So the next day we get up and we're we're at the fairgrounds and we're looking to explore, and and um the convenient thing about being at a state fair is is you have shower setups as well. So we went in to use the shower and I realized at that moment that I didn't buy a towel yet, and I didn't buy uh soaps and shampoos yet. So me being a resourceful redneck, I had a ziploc bag full of toil trees that I got through the airport. I turned that ziplock bag into some hand soap into a soap dispenser for my shower, and I used a tank top as a towel, but it all worked out. And when you spend that much time on the road, it feels rather refreshing, truth be told. So on day two, we roll out of uh Texarkana, Arkansas, and we set our destination on Memphis, Tennessee. We are forecasting the blues for you and me. So as we're rolling into Memphis, Brian says, Hey man, let's find us a good spot. Let's find us a lookout where we can see the Mississippi River. So I start researching best place to view the Mississippi off of I-40. And it comes up with a Bass Pro Shops. And I said, A Bass Pro Shop is the best place to see the Mississippi? You gotta be kidding me. But no, there is an elevator that brings you to a sky lookout. And we said, This is it for us. As we're rolling up, you see a glass freaking pyramid on the side of I-40 in the city of Memphis. At that moment, we start questioning our history books and wondering what Tennessean Egyptians built this pyramid, because I was unaware of said pyramid. And who gave a redneck this much money to put a bass pro shops in a pyramid? The old Tennessean Egyptian pyramid. It was miraculous, it was gorgeous, it was made of glass, and it was fabulous. My wife had actually told me about this place before because there is a hotel in it. There's a five-star hotel inside of the Bass Bro Shops. There's cottages, there's lodges, there's regular hotel rooms, there's restaurants at the bottom, there's a bowling alley, there's a shooting range, there's um crazy amounts of fish tanks, there's obviously you have like pools of water, like ponds kind of going through the entire store. It's incredible. You can spend hours just there checking things out. And then there's an elevator that takes you all the way up to the top of the pyramid. And when you get out, you walk into a restaurant, first off, and you roll out onto this deck, and there's this lookout, and there's this glass lookout, which I had to risk the biscuit and walk all the way out on the grass on the glass ledge and take a uh a view for myself and get it and get a look. And I just got the most tremendous, amazing look of the Mississippi River. And up until this point, me and Brian looked at a hundred different Memphis barbecue spots that we were gonna go to for dinner or for lunch as soon as we finished this tour. But when we saw the view up there, we both looked at each other and said, here seems good for lunch. So we had lunch right there, overlooking the Mississippi River. I couldn't believe it. Where the heck am I? What am I doing? We're having lunch looking over the Mississippi. It was the gorgeous, most amazing thing. And it's we're sitting there kind of processing our schedule and what we're gonna do, and then uh Brian starts talking about driving through Nashville, and you know, I don't know if we're gonna make it tonight. And I said, wait a minute, we're heading towards Nashville. And he said, Yeah, man, we're headed towards Nashville. And I said, I thought we were going a different direction. And he said, Well, that direction changed. And I said, Well, I think we must find our way to Nashville. I think we must make it to Broadway, and I'm gonna bring you to Roberts because tonight you're gonna be eating a baloney sandwich, a moon pie, a bag of chips, and a bush light. Brian looked at it and said, Well, I think we can make that. That is how we roll on the road. Very simple, very quick. It's just a look of the eye at each other, and you know, you check in and you recognize this is good to go. You're all set here. We had a plan for lunch in Memphis, it didn't work out. You see a view, look over the Mississippi, and then that's it for you and me. We're sitting down having dinner. And then when you realize I can make this timeline work because my compadre really wants to be there, we'll make that work. That's just how we rolled. That's how we rolled the entire trip. So we roll into Nashville, Tennessee. It's late. I don't know what time it is, man. I my everything's a blur. I don't know if it's 11 o'clock, I don't know if it's 12 o'clock. On the way, Brian says, Where the hell are we gonna park this RV, man? And I started doing a little research and I said, Hey, I got it. We're gonna go to the Tennessee Titans Stadium. He's like, What do you mean? And I said, the NFL stadium for the Titans is right at the end of Broadway. So we roll in there and he says, Yep, that'll work. First off, who says that'll work? And who comes up with that being an idea? Only two renegades like me and BP. We roll in, and then at that moment we realize we might be up against something a little bit uh more of a challenge here because there's construction everywhere. So with the construction, half of the stadium parking lot is shut down. Now it's gonna be a little bit harder to blend in and hide a 31-foot RV. We go down one road, it's a dead end. I asked the security guard if I can get over to the other side and this is gonna work, and yada yada. He says, Yeah, go for it, see you later by. We get over there and we find the first lot says no RVs. We move from there, go to another lot, we park there. As we get out to embark on our walk to Broadway, we notice the the local PD's paddy wagon is parked right next to us. And I said, That might not be the best spot for us, right there. Because that means cops might be going back and forth to this low station, the little location all night long. That might not work for us. We go down to Broadway, we roll downtown, we get into Roberts, and we saddle up, and I order us some baloney sandwiches, and we just take on the most authentic grassroots, Americana, outlaw, country music, and we just start enjoying ourselves. And there's a crazy thing about Nashville because when you're sitting there, people just roll up to you and they just start having conversations with you. And uh I met a lady that was uh moving Tennessee for um for DC because her husband's in the military. They're getting a new house and getting married in a month. Uh I met this single dude with the craziest facial hair I've ever seen with a fringe jacket from Pennsylvania that's in his 50s and he's single and he's out in Tennessee every month looking to mingle. Then I had another young fellow come over and saddle up next to me. And when I was chatting with him, I found out that he was just about a month or so away from graduating from med school and uh he was looking for a job at Mass General, and we started chatting, and I said, Yeah, man, I left uh I left Massachusetts yesterday, so he asked me what I was doing, and we started telling him where we've been. And at that moment, when you're reflecting on your story and when you're sharing it with a stranger, and you say, I left Maine at two. We drove to Boston, we flew to Houston. From Houston, we drove to Nova Soda, we got an RV, we spent the night in Texas, Arkana, we woke up at the barrel race, and I had lunch over the Mississippi, and I'm having dinner here with you at Roberts on Nashville and Broadway. And he said, Man, you boys are my idols. You're my inspirations. And he brought all of his friends over and introduced them to us, and I handed out Val Proud American brochures and stickers for everybody. And he just started thinking, man, we are living a lot of people's dreams and fantasies. We are doing some things that seem strange and crazy. But it just happens to be how me and Brian just how we roll together, man. But it really makes you appreciate what you're doing, it really makes you appreciate the opportunity, it really makes you appreciate the experience that you're having. There's a sweet older lady sitting next to me, and she says, uh, are you using this seat, young fella? And I said, No, ma'am, you can you can gladly have that seat. She said, Oh, it's not for me. It's for these fellows over here, because they just got off the stage at the rhyming, and they need a place to stay, and they need a place to sit. The rhyman is the it's it's the Opry. And I look over and there's a whole group of dudes, and this young lady, and they're um coming over, and they all have their backstage all access passes, and and um they're just right here next to us partying, and and um I didn't know any of these bands. One of them was called Trampled by Turtles, and uh I looked them up on the road trip the next day, and they have a massive following. They play red rock and and massive stadiums, and it's kind of like that uh you know hippie lettuce music, you know what I mean? Little hippie lettuce music, it's the hippie bluegrass. But uh, there was a big old band, and they were having a great time, and another band that was with them was called Wild Horses, and there was this uh this young fellow with a Foom Man Chew and his and his wife or girlfriend, who um is also on the band with them, and and um just a young, good-looking couple with a free spirit and soul, and and they were out there dancing and and and two-stepping and having a great time and singing along, and um it was just really cool to see. And you're thinking, like, man, I'm right next to these two bands that just headline the freaking rhyme, and we see multiple people coming and just fangirling, looking at them, just getting all excited, people getting all googled and googly-eyed and gagay over them, and we're just like, I don't know, man, they're just hanging out next to us. I don't know what the deal is. And uh, I was gonna try to, you know, maybe finagle our uh some loud prod American stickers over to them, but I couldn't make my approach because I didn't know what their music was, and I felt kind of hypocritical. You know what I mean? So I didn't really interject into the conversation. Had I had the opportunity to like go to a quiet place and hear some of the music, I would have known my my approach, but that didn't happen. But it was pretty damn cool, anyways, to just know that they were just right next to us gym and out having a great time. So it was pretty damn cool. We roll back to um the RV, and then we realized we gotta move the RV out of this spot. This is actually a private spot. There's another lot right across from it with a gate there, and we're looking around, and it's definitely um like a permitted option only, but we're thinking, what's the likelihood of them having a tow truck big enough to move us? And if they start trying to put a boot on the tire, we're gonna be able to come out anyway. So we head over that way, but I had to open the gate to get us in because we were too big to fit through the single lane. So I opened the gate, we pull the RV up and we hide it over by some train tracks, and uh then security comes over and starts talking to Brian. And uh there's some keys here, folks. There's some keys if you're gonna live like me and BP, and that is act like you've been there, act like you're supposed to be there, act like someone told you to be there. You understand? So the guy's asking us what we're doing, and Brian says, Oh man, yeah, we were told we could stay over here. We're just gonna crash for a few hours and we're gonna get out of here. Uh, we're just on the road from Texas to Maine. This is the the biggest lot we could find. We were told we could just be over here. I thought it would be all right. And he said, Well, you opened my gate. And uh he's kind of grilling us on questions, and Brian just keeps rolling with it. That's like, yeah, no worries. I'm you know, sorry about that. Is it okay if we stay right here? I mean, we're just gonna sleep for a couple hours and we'll be out of here. Finally, after a little bit of back and forth, the guy said to him, Well, I want to close the gate behind you. I'm not gonna kick you out of here. But what I am gonna tell you is it there's a protest here in the morning. All right, there's gonna be a protest here, and Brian says, Well, I don't want to be a part of the protest, so uh, what time is that? And he says, I can't tell you, but it is early. But I'm not gonna bother with you if you guys want to, you know, go to sleep here, you're all set. So, two things, folks. Number one, that means we just rolled into the Tennessee Titans Stadium, the home of the Titans, an NFL team, and said, We're supposed to be here with this RV, and we slept in the parking lot of the stadium for the Tennessee Titans. Now, multiple times waking up and taking a taking a leak outside of the RV. At one point, Brian gets out there, he goes peeing, he comes in and he says, Hey man, this isn't good. And I said, What's up? He said, We gotta go. They're already setting up cones, they're getting ready for this protest. Now, this is one I should let you know. After the security guard left, I did a little research, and I realized this was a no-kings protest. This is the wrong crowd for me and BP. You understand? This is not the spot for the loud proud American tour bus. We gots to go. So at 4 a.m., we're in the bus and we're freaking loaded up, pull in the sides, and let's get the heck out of Dodge. So we uh maybe went to sleep around 2 a.m. We got up by four and we hit the door. The satisfaction that we took from knowing that in a few short hours that protest would begin with a bunch of blue-haired moronic Democrats standing in the piss piles that me and my man BP left in Nashville made me smile just a little bit. Okay, just a little bit. We left Nashville, Tennessee with the next destination as Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We rolled up to Gatlinburg, we took the RV through the Smoky Mountains, through the Blue Ridge Parkway. Some of the most tremendous views I've ever seen. So close to the mountains, I could just reach out and touch them with my fingers. Tight spots we didn't think an RV should be. But it was incredible. Amazing views as far as the eye can see. We rolled into Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We parked the RV and we just walked all through Gatlinburg checking out stores and shops and moonshine distilleries and all that good stuff. And uh as soon as we got there and we started walking, this fellas, you know, started commenting on um on our shirts. Brian was wearing the Freedom sweatshirt, and um I turned around and said, Hey, thanks, man. And I took out a sticker and a brochure and I said, uh, we actually make them. And he said, Yeah, me too. And then he kind of laughed me off a little bit. And um at that point it got a little bit awkward, you know, like we're making shirts, he's making shirts, kind of this little standoff scenario. But I rolled it into that's great, man. I'm happy for you. We can all support each other, man. Here's some stickers of mine, uh, what's the name of your your place? Like, oh, like I'd love to check you out. And that kind of changed the tune of the conversation. And he said, Well, I've got two stores in Branson, Missouri, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's that's tremendous. And he's like, Yeah, they they do pretty well, not as good as my daughter's store right here in Gatlinburg. And he pointed over and said, That Trump store over there is my daughter's. And we started chatting. He said, It's kind of funny. I was just in there and I said, You need some freedom t-shirts. And she said, I'd love to have them, but we're all sold out. He's like, Now here you guys are wearing freedom shirts. Do you wholesale your shirts? And I said, I've never really done that, but I would be happy to explore doing that with you. We exchanged some information, and um, you're supposed to reach out to me to possibly wholesale some of my Lab Proud American merchandise to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which would be an amazing opportunity for me. I'm not gonna get too excited about it because on this trip I had a lot of opportunities come my way, or a lot of promises come my way that were never fulfilled along the way. You understand? And far too often people come to you and say they're gonna do something, they're gonna grant you something, they're gonna give you something, and they just don't show up to do nothing. So I can't be too optimistic this will come true. But it's rather amazing to me that there's a possibility that this could come true. I've been talking for years that the goal for my business is to have representation in Tennessee. If all of a sudden in my first trip to Gatlinburg someone approaches me and it turns into the opportunity for Lyon Proud American to be sold in the streets of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, it would be incredible. Me and BP had dinner in Gatlinburg at Old Red, and we were walking back to the truck to the to the RV. I said, uh I said, Hey Brian, can you uh take a look up there and confirm something for me? Is that a is that a bald eagle I see? And he looks at it and says, Yep, that sure is. If you guys have been listening to me over the years, you've been listening to me losing my father, and the fact that I am um convinced that my father comes back to see me as a bald eagle. And if I told you up into my father's passing, which is forty-one-ish years of my life, I saw maybe two bald eagles since my dad's been gone. Over the past couple years, I've maybe seen 20. So I saw this bald eagle and I only saw it long enough just to recognize what it was and to watch it disappear into the clouds. But it was a little bit of validation, a little bit of satisfaction knowing that my father's on this trip with me, and my father approves of me. It was pretty incredible for me to see that. We left uh Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We drove through Pigeon Forge, and then um we just started putting the hammer down so we could get home, and we we drove that night um all the way into uh Pennsylvania. We pulled into a truck stop in Pennsylvania, slept for uh four hours or so, woke up and got back on the road, and we returned ourselves to Maine in the afternoon on Sunday. We left on Thursday. On Thursday, to Boston, Houston, to Nova Soda, drive through Texas and Louisiana, spend the night in Texas, Arkana, wake up and watch barrel racing, have lunch over the Mississippi in Memphis, Tennessee, have dinner in the best honky tonk and Broadway in Nashville, Tennessee, drive through the Blue Ridge Parkway on Saturday, spend your afternoon in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, drive all the way to Pennsylvania at night, and return to my family on Sunday. Me and Brian had some of the most amazing conversations, from the wild and most ridiculous to the absolute heartfelt, most sentimental, being moved to tears conversations. Me and Brian analyzed life, death, love, business, relationships, friendships, all of it. When you spend that much time behind the wheel and a windshield, experiencing life, taking on and appreciating and viewing and consuming some of the most amazing views that this great land has to offer. With one of the best friends you could ever imagine. Thinking about the fact that about fourteen years ago we worked together as strangers, sharing a location, sharing two deaths and a Harley Davidson dealership by the door that turned into this. When you think that your choices in life led to this. If I still work for Harley Davidson, I don't start Loud Proud American. If I still work for Harley Davidson, I'm not on the road doing any of this. If I still work for Harley Davidson, I'm not traveling selling my brand. I'm not growing up at fairs, I'm not involved in barrel racing. I'm not taking the time off to go to Daytona, Florida for bike week. If I'm not doing those things, if Brian doesn't have the flexibility and the schedule and the opportunity and the balls to say I'm going with you, we don't spend two years traveling back and forth to Daytona. If we don't spend those trips in Daytona, then Brian doesn't buy an RV in Tampa Bay that we drive home. And if he doesn't buy that RV, then we don't end up on a road trip to Texas to buy another one. There's a rhyme and a rhythm, and there's a reason to this life we live. And you never know those those acquaintances that you make. You don't know how many of those acquaintances. Those one time strangers become lifelong family. I've shared and done more with Brian in the past few months than I've done with 95% of my family. It's pretty incredible. I'm blessed to have spent time in two of my most favorite stages. I am so blessed to have spent time with one of my best friends at a time when I absolutely needed it. You don't come home with all the answers, but you come home with a new perspective. And you come home thankful for the life you live and the opportunity you were granted. And you hope that those things combined as to one thing to empower you to get up and keep going after it. No matter how dark the days, no matter how cold the nights, to keep the faith that it's all gonna be alright. I just wrapped up one of the most amazing experiences of my life. One in which you get up each day and you try to get back into your old normal routine and nothing really seems real. When you just find yourself just doing the most crazy things. Hey, let's pull into the state fairgrounds. I think we can find a room here. Hey, let's go to this NFL stadium. I think this is gonna be alright. Doing the things that we did, seeing the things that we saw, sharing the things that we did. It was incredible. I really truly can't put it all into words, but I hope today's episode shared with you the most tremendous event that I've been a part of in recent memory. I hope that today inspires you to throw caution to the wind and do something crazy. To take that close friend or loved one and just head out and embark on the open road and do something crazy. Give yourself a factory reset. No matter what this world is telling you not to do, take the opportunity for you. It might not be the right time, but it might be the only time. Don't regret the time, but you didn't take the step. Don't regret the time you didn't take the opportunity. Don't regret the time you didn't take the chance. Take the chance. Get up and dance. Do this for yourself. When you feel the walls closing in, change them. Jump out of the walls, change your routine, and show you still got them balls. Sorry, it rhyme that it made a lot of sense. But I'm saying this today to empower you today to get out and do something for you. Find an opportunity for you. Shake yourself at the core. Do something for you that says no more. I'm gonna change my routine and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna figure it out. I will conquer this. This too shall pass. Find the opportunity and tell everybody else to kiss my ass. Get it done. I love you. I appreciate you and I empower you to do something for you. The time doesn't need to be right, the money doesn't need to be right. Nothing needs to be right. But if you need to get your head right, then do this for you. You understand? I appreciate you and I thank you. And I truly hope you appreciated this story today, this wild road trip story today. BP Brian Palmolo, thank you so much for thanking to me, man. You are this week's winning Wednesday weekly shout out. I can't believe what we just did, man. You know what? I can't believe it. Because you and me are wired different. We're bred different. We are road dogs, road warriors, and there ain't nobody else like us. Thank you for taking me on this journey, my brother. I look forward to the next one. To each and every one of you, I thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your friggin' hands, you filthy savages. That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls. If you're a Loud Proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, find me on YouTube and Facebook at Loud Proud American, Face page, as my mama calls it. If you're a fan of the Graham Cracker, you wanna find me on Instagram or all the kids, a tickety talkin' on the TikTok, you can find me on both of those at loud underscore craud underscore American. Big old thank you to the voice from the Gut Truckers for the background beats and the theme song to your podcast. If you are enjoying what you're hearing, please track down the gut truckers on Facebook Just Sir Gut Truckers. Give that motherfucker a like. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.