#64 January 22, 2022 Nomad Driving Day. Airbnb Check Out and Check In. Anderson, Indiana to Meridianville, Alabama.
Before Saturday Plan:
I'm starting this Nomad diary post before Saturday the 22nd to explain some details that I am thinking and coordinating as we get closer to our airbnb 'check out' time of 10 a.m. on the 22nd. When Saturday comes, Darrell and I know that we will wake up early, do our morning exercise routine, pack up our truck and get going on our way toward Alabama.
We want to visit our nephew's new Bagel Shop, Sidedoor Bagels in downtown Indianapolis. They open at 8am on Saturdays. There isn't a place to sit inside and it is very cold and wintery outside. This means that we will either be eating inside our truck, or finding a coffeehouse where we can bring in our food as we have coffee there.
Our driving distance is 433 miles and about 6 1/2 hours of driving. We have been sharing the driving about 50/50 when I can drive in the morning as I do better at that time. On this trip, we will mostly be driving 70 miles per hour on Highway 65 that goes North and South quite directly between our two locations. We leave Indianapolis in Eastern Time Zone, travel through Louisville, Kentucky, Nashville, Tennessee, and continuing south to Meridianville, Alabama just north of Huntsville. We arrive into Central Time Zone which is one hour earlier than Eastern. Our Airbnb check in time is 3pm.
Along our trip, we expect to make 2-3 stops for the restroom, lunch and gasoline refueling. Darrell and I have driven this highway many, many times in the past 30 years! We are very familiar with what we can expect.
What really happened on Saturday!
I wrote plans above, but the day didn't go exactly like the plan. That's okay! It was a beautiful and sunny day and we got to our airbnb in Meridianville by about 5pm Central Time.
We decided to make our 1st breakfast at our airbnb. We woke up early without the alarm, did our DDP Yoga routine for the morning. And made a breakfast of what we had in our fridge. For Darrell: 3 left over gluten free pancakes made from Bob's Red Mill mix, a bowl of cut fresh fruit: pineapple, banana and strawberries, some cottage cheese and 2 poached eggs. For me: 2 poached eggs and toast made from the last piece of homemade bread gifted to us, olive oil and jam! For coffee we used the kurig in the airbnb since we had already packed our french press.
While I washed dishes and did the checkout list (gather and remove trash, put used linens on the washer, put away dishes), Darrell packed the truck. In the bed of the truck, he stacked our 8 crates and 4 locking-lid trunks. In the back of our cab, he put our suitcases, backpacks, pillows and cooler. I didn't get to help him this time, but I prefer to be reminded of how our items fit into our truck. As we left, I asked him about the weight of the crates and trunks as far as the ease of the job. He said that there are a couple of heavy items that we can consider getting rid of, or in other words, "downsizing". We are thinking about how often we use certain items, and their value to us vs. the portability of the items. Currently on our target is a large iron skillet. It weighs a lot, and it has a limited use even though we do enjoy cooking with it. We left our place at 7:44am. We headed towards Indianapolis and our nephew's Sidedoor Bagels shop.
Inside Sidedoor Bagels. We arrived to Sidedoor Bagels about 9am and there was a line out the door! Yay for our nephew and his wife!! So, we wanted the full experience and stood in line outside the shop for about 20 minutes. Josh and Emily were expecting us and said to let the clerk know when we arrived. We made our selections and then Emily came out, didn't charge us, and took us into the back for a hello and a private kitchen tour. Josh showed us his fancy oven that bakes 250 bagels at a time. This day he expected to sell 1000.
We were given some additional warm Bialys and some coffee to go. We left about 10am, eating our delicious breads in the truck.
We were full and very content. We drove two hours before finally talking to Darrell's Mom on our regular Saturday call. We were busy, then she was busy, then it was an hour of casual catching up.
We decided to drive to Nashville for a late lunch at an Indian restaurant we have wanted to return to for several years. We set the GPS at the same gas stop we had a video call with Jeremy, Andrea and Quinn. Soon we hit a traffic jam that made it so we would not make it to our restaurant destination before they closed at 2pm. We decided to get off the main highway and drive through Tennessee farm country and way around the east side of Nashville.
We were hungry and I asked for lunch at not a Mexican restaurant. Darrell was navigating and I was driving. He found Mabel's. It was not super clean, or really clean at all. Oh well, we stayed there and ate with the locals and we both liked our food well enough! Darrell got chicken livers, corn, potatoes and gravy and cornbread that looked like pancakes. I had a veggie omelet and biscuits. Our bill was like $10 plus a generous $3 tip. We drove on towards Meridianville. I was getting hungry early for dinner, so we decided that we would eat before we unloaded our truck. We picked Mexican this time because there were so many on the main road within 10 miles of our airbnb.
Mabel's, somewhere east of Nashville and north of Meridianville. Lol.
The food was okay. The restaurant was clean. We couldn't eat all we were served and we got a take-out box. We unloaded our truck before dark. We were tired and it was about 5:30. We were arranging items like unloading the cooler into the fridge, putting our boxes in reasonable places, getting an idea of what we had in this house and about making coffee for breakfast, reading the welcome book and looking at a gift basket (these are always great!). By 6:30 I went to get my shower, put on my housecoat and watch TV for a little while.
Bedtime by 9pm. It took us a couple of tries to find a nightlight. We also had to pull out our bath mat to use in the semi-slippery tub.
This airbnb is large for us with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It's super comfy to spread out. The host has provided loads of amenities like coffee, laundry soap, dishwasher soap, a pound of sliced cheese, a can of sardines, some crackers from Kuwaite (!), Pelligrini water, and loads more that make it pleasant and a great value too! We will be here for a month.
Inside our airbnb:
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