hush puppies are like chips and salsa

In which we take a brief respite from our summer reading series to  discuss recent East Coast Travel. Brandon brings a list of oscillating vacillating waffles. Aaron is relieved to have finally been offered sweet tea…sugar.

  • The one bag trick!

  • Important travel hack - genius of Susan!

  • The definitive East coast city ranking

  • Oscillating vacillating waffles

    • 4- DC

    • 3- South Philly

    • 2- NYC

    • 1- Boston

  • Small musical review!- BONUS

  • Shucked! https://shuckedmusical.com/

  • The High Line: https://www.thehighline.org/visit/

  • Aaron’s East Coast tour

  • Haunted tours

  • LOTS of walking

  • Sweet tea sugar?

  • GO TANYA!! Best bus driver!

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

walk, cool, boston, people, drive, part, savannah, fun, place, big, called, susan, house, tour, fine, vendors, felt, week, clients, nashville

SPEAKERS

Aaron, Collin, Brandon

Collin  00:04

Welcome to Oh, brother, podcast of three brothers. Trying to figure it all out. It's your hosts, Brandon. Colin. Aaron. On this week's show, hush puppies are like chips and salsa. A Hi what's what's going

Brandon  00:25

on? Oh, man. Recovery. What's going on? covery is happening

00:35

hard recovery mode, huh?

Brandon  00:38

Yeah, yeah that's that's pretty much it. Yeah wondering why wondering why I'm so hungry so early me like, oh, yeah, man that East Coast time and mess with you brain limit there's like nothing much now. I mean, care I'm doing.

Collin  00:57

Right. Yeah. Okay. So you have to force yourself to get back into that into that process. Right. Or into that, that habit?

Brandon  01:05

Yeah. I mean, does it matter so much right now because of everything going on. But

Collin  01:10

little? So, yeah, we're

Brandon  01:16

recovering. Unfortunately, Susan had less time to recover because she had to go to work the day after he got back.

Collin  01:22

So

Brandon  01:24

how was that transition? Well, I mean, for me, it was fine. Because we just got up make it early. And then left from dad's house. Right. We sneaked out before everybody. Sorry. Sorry, I missed you.

Collin  01:40

East. Okay. I'm gonna take this rug way. But I'm glad I didn't see you at 430 in the morning. Yeah, that's fine.

Brandon  01:49

And then we just came home. And then she's like, got, you know, like, take some time here. And then she went into work. So she was pretty much dead yesterday. When she came home, but

Collin  02:02

yeah, all right. slowly recovering. Doing stuff. It's all good. So, and hopefully it didn't have How was your unpacking experience? This time? I want to know all about. I'll start with the end. What was it like unpacking just a handbag?

Brandon  02:20

I mean, oh, it was a Yeah, so that one bag trick. It worked pretty well. I would say. I would say the old one bag traveler. I worked pretty good. Right? Turned out pretty well. Yeah, I feel like it was successful. We did the and then Susan just used like, she bought like a tote bag at one of the gift shops. It just like a couple of random things that we bought, like magnet and like a T shirt or two or whatever. Like, she just like, grabbed that. And that was her like, personal item on the plane. So no problem. So it was pretty good. Right? It was pretty. I felt like it also made me a better traveler. Because I had to keep everything in the hotel room. Like very, like, like together. Right? Quite spread out. Yeah. And so it just made everything like, Alright, here's like, where I'm gonna put all my stuff right here. And then that's just where everything lives only. And then when it's time to go just like alright, let's go I'm although I will say important travel hack, right? Oh, here's, here's the genius of Susan ready. In her little liquid bag that she brought on the airplane. She had a travel sized Febreeze thing.

Collin  03:41

Ah, this is key to

Brandon  03:49

not just like being horribly smelly, right after a few days because just like you know, instead of like, you wear the shirt like once and just kind of give it to like, and then you let it air out and then you roll it up and throw back in the bag. Right? Or you can just kind of like for breeze inside of your bag a little bit by way all right. Everything's doing good. Everything's staying nice and whatever. So it's all the travel tip.

Collin  04:13

Okay.

Brandon  04:16

Wow,

Collin  04:17

I like that. I like that. So we have we have East Coast travel Bonanza here we've got Yeah, I don't know where you want to start with your your adventures. You know last last we spoke about this. You were trying to decide which was going to be the worst of the East Coast cities. And so for now, I will say that

Brandon  04:44

these the next ranking the following ranking is is based on limited exposure. Okay. Only spending a little bit of time is spent. So the cities we went to Boston New York, Philly and Washington DC, right? So the maximum two days per place. So we're it's kind of a whirlwind, right. So I don't have, like, in depth geographic knowledge of the entire metropolitan area. Okay. So now that this is just the parts of the cities I was exposed to. Okay, so even though if I do, you know, I didn't get to see the whole thing. So I'm sure there are parts of like some of the cities that are like complete trash, right, and there's like some better parts that maybe I missed out on. So

Collin  05:38

from what I know of doing these things, the more limited the knowledge or experience, the harder you got to come out with your one two punch. So just stick to her this is I'm saying I'm calling it the definitive East Coast City ranking, or of

Brandon  05:50

the four of these,

05:51

these four that were for two days apiece.

Brandon  05:55

Yeah, I guess technically, I was in Salem for a few hours. But you know, I don't know if that counts, we will call that the greater Boston area, I guess.

Collin  06:10

Yeah, so

Brandon  06:12

I think it will go reverse order. Right, we'll go reverse order. Top four in reverse order here. So there were four. Like these, the following two cities are kind of I think they're kind of like the same.

Collin  06:28

Like I didn't just like

Brandon  06:30

they're cool parts, but didn't just like, love them. Right? Like a kinda.

Collin  06:38

This is kind of hard. I don't

Brandon  06:39

really know. It's kind of waffles of vacillating, oscillating, if you will, back and forth between. Like, I'm gonna just go and say, like Washington, DC, just kind of man. Right?

Collin  06:53

Like, it's a city. It's not really very,

Brandon  06:58

I mean, it's like, one job is to be the Capitol. Okay, so in that regard, it does good. All right. It's just like, outside of that. It's just like, it's, you know, again, it's like, it's tiny, right? It's like, even though it's like one of the, you know, top 10 are actually out of all of these cities. They are all four on the top 11 and most populous cities in the United States. So and it's not, we're not talking like insignificant here.

Collin  07:26

Yeah, I keep forgetting just how large dc of a city actually

Brandon  07:31

is. Yeah, but like, as a city, right. Like, it's all just around the Capitol. And so like, the capital part is like really cool.

Collin  07:40

Yeah. But like this. So

Brandon  07:44

the capital parts are really cool. It's really kind of weird, how, like, huge and spread out all the buildings are, right? Because it gives you this like really weird sense of like, it feels like everything takes forever to get to, because we were on foot for a lot of this trip, right? Like walking from place to place in DC, it feels like you walk for like, seven 7000 years to get anywhere. Right? Whereas in like, New York City, for example, or even Philadelphia, if you walk that same amount of time you've passed, like so much stuff. Sure. You've seen like, all kinds of things. If you walk that far in DC, you've seen like four buildings. It's yeah, but like, so. Maybe as a city, it's not that great, but like the capital part, and like the mall thing, and all that stuff

Collin  08:37

is that's pretty cool. Right? That's, uh, that's good. Okay, it's not like that. So we've got two differences on the grandiose scale stuff to different scales here as a city bad as being the capital. Good. Okay. So it wins the first place of

Brandon  08:52

like, tempered by the fact that like, Did I see like homeless people fighting in the middle? The street in Washington DC? Yes. Yesterday? Yeah.

Collin  09:03

Like a dead rat on the sidewalk? Yes. Yesterday. So like, you know, context here is important.

Brandon  09:14

I think after that would be so three, probably Philadelphia. I like South Philly. We were mostly in South Philly. Oh, right. So I don't know about the rest of it. Obviously. So South Philly is pretty cool. We did have to take a big long detour through North Philadelphia because the I 95 Bridge did collapse the week before we were there. So

Collin  09:39

I had to take a big ol

Brandon  09:43

big ol long detour. So driving through North Philly, North Philly. less exciting. Did I see a car on fire just on the sidewalk? Yes, it did. So like that is

Collin  09:59

really NOC marked.

Brandon  10:03

Yeah, right. So it was like, Ooh, quality place this right? random car on fire on the sidewalk, which is also not where cars go. So something strange has happened here. I don't really know

Collin  10:18

how this occurred. Do you remember that time that there was a random car down and peck hollow that was on fire that they were? We found the police the fire department pulling the pants out of the back of the window? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brandon  10:33

Anyway, just normally, like in southwest Missouri, if there's a car on fire in the field, right, Somebody has stolen that car, taken it for a joyride, and then burned it in hopes of torching the evidence that they stole the car. Yes. That's the Missouri context for why a car is on fire. Yeah. I don't know. It's the same as the Philly context or not, or just something catastrophic had happened. But

Collin  10:57

like this cultural phenom of burning cars. Who knows the reasons?

Brandon  11:02

Yeah, yeah, it was weird too, because we were. Okay, so the lane that we're traveling in, the car was here and then in front of the car was like, burn marks, like the car had gone the opposite direction, leaving a trail of like fire and stuff on the grass. So I don't that didn't make a lot of sense to me. crime scene investigator for me, it was like, something doesn't add up here.

11:32

Yeah, what was going on that aside,

Brandon  11:35

the southern parts of Philly are really cool. They're really nice. It's like really neat down there. Because a lot of like, cool stuff.

Collin  11:44

So it was nice, down there. Number two,

Brandon  11:48

we're gonna put a group in New York City and number two, right? You okay? Because I enjoyed Boston so much. That's going in number one. Right? Okay. Or do you like being in Boston? Boston is just like, like, we drove like all around Boston, like all over the place. And it's really nice. Like, it's the majority of it's like, pretty clean. Just like pretty if you love brick architecture also, boy, howdy. Is Boston, the place for you. If you love bricks, this is the this is the place to be. While predominantly centered in like North Boston, North End Boston, which is not really north, but it's fine. Don't Don't worry. Don't think about too much talk if you let me know. Yeah, it's a little hard, but it's pretty cool. Right? I didn't like New York. Right? I was a little worried. Like, I didn't know what to expect about New York City. Right? You know, you hear about like, oh, it's crowded stuff. Like does that make it terrible? Actually, no, I found just like walking the Sidewalks of New York City to be like extremely fun and entertaining. Walking random. It's like, I just liked it. Right?

Collin  13:06

I like the fact that like,

Brandon  13:09

I like I got into the groove of like being the fish. Right? You just like, go over here. Just head up your walk and you're just like ducking and diving and stuff. Right? Just in the zone, man. Yes. Cool. We did drive through like other parts. We were mostly in Manhattan area like Midtown and South Manhattan. We did drive through like Harlem and stuff. We drove through like the Bronx a little bit, right. We got to see some of the other parts. So I thought was cool. I thought it was very fun. By Boston was my favorite. Architecturally it's the most like colonial still because like the city is partly still colonial and then like, all the surrounding area, especially because we went to Salem, right so like you just like it was really exciting. Ah, yes. Found them like I found it is your

Collin  14:00

right here, guys. Right. Yeah, that was fun, though. It was a good time. Okay, whirlwind. But again,

Brandon  14:09

it's pretty fun, right?

Collin  14:10

A lot of cool stuff. Right. I guess,

Brandon  14:16

walking around North bog, we did like the Freedom Trail thing. Right. So you walk around and you see like all the stuff, although, like, historic things and like the big capitol building there and

Collin  14:31

like, the

Brandon  14:32

churches and the Paul Revere thing and like the fig wheel Hall and stuff like that, like the old markets and stuff. That was really cool. And, like the harbor, Boston Harbor is really cool. Like Boston Harbor,

Collin  14:46

right? Yeah. Is that the one you sent a picture? From there? Right over there. Did

Brandon  14:51

I see it? Oh, yeah. Is that the one of me and Susan Yeah, that's just Boston Harbor. That's just us hanging out. We're just you

Collin  14:57

know, nice. So yeah,

Brandon  15:01

like the Paul Revere House right down there, and all that stuff. So Boston's pretty cool, right? We did a lot of fun things. I learned exciting information. Here's your pro tip, if you've never been to Boston, okay? If you want to find the oldest part of Boston, you go

Collin  15:17

uphill. Boom, you found it. So

Brandon  15:22

apparently, what I learned is that Boston used to have three hills. Now it has one because they pushed the other two into the sea to make the land bigger. Oh, that's, that's when you're like, yeah, like, Yeah, so like Boston. Common and stuff is like up a hill. And so if you go like up the hill, that's the oldest part of Boston.

Aaron  15:49

Wild because it's.

Collin  15:52

Yeah, yeah.

Brandon  15:54

So yeah, we went through the common like part of it. It's huge, right? It's way bigger than it looks. Boston is also very green. There's just like, random parks like everywhere. Like all over the place. They have the new like, green trail thing. They have like all kinds of stuff where, like, there's just like little parks all over the place. There's not even big ones just like a little area, like, oh, there's some benches into trees. Boom, done, right? So it's kind of cool.

Collin  16:22

It's kind of enjoyable to walk around.

Brandon  16:26

Is it true that there's a Dunkin Donuts on every corner in Boston? Now? No, it's every other because you have to have room for all the CVS Pharmacies, right? Literally everywhere. It's just like, Dunkin CVS, Dunkin CVS, like all the way

Collin  16:47

so how many times did you have Dunkin Donuts?

Brandon  16:49

I'll just, that's fine. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about how much Dunkin coffee I drink. It's okay. Nobody's asking. It's not important.

16:55

Except me.

Brandon  16:58

Not important. Well, good.

Collin  17:01

lives like you live like a local that's that's what's important. Right? You live? Yeah,

Brandon  17:06

got the Dunkin got the stuff, right? It's fine. Eight the eight. Chatter. Right. Yeah, some chatter.

Collin  17:14

The plate we ate it. Like

Brandon  17:18

I don't remember what it's called now. But like over by fin we'll haul there's just like a big like, thing we put up on my map here so I can get the name right. The Bostonians Don't shout at me.

Collin  17:33

Be very careful. You're on thin territory. Yeah. But like yeah, in like downtown Boston. Yeah. By the habit.

Brandon  17:44

Yeah, the Finn wheel haul marketplace thing. So it's like this huge. out like this huge building that is just like, full of like little food, like a food court thing. And these kinds of places, they're all over. Like we ate at one there. They're just like, kind of a thing. Right? And this is the most fantastic thing, like ever. It's just like a whole building. And it's just like full of food stalls. Yes. Yeah. This is the way right. This is how it should be. Because you just walk in and you're like, oh, what's what's it going to be? So we had some like, one of the places was just like a mac and cheese place. That's all they do. I want to have this macaroni cheese. Absolutely.

Collin  18:33

Yeah. Susan took

Brandon  18:36

like a whole video that making it because it's all made like right there in front of you. They like take all the different cheeses and put them in a saucepan or pan and start melting it all together. And then when it's melted, then they throw in the topping and the noodle and juice it all up and then put it in this little box. You know? Hey, that is under appreciated word Jewish. Yeah, it was really good. Very pleased. We did like the Federal Hall Marketplace thing. That was cool. Walked around a lot of downtown. Also. Downtown is cool, too. Because like, basically, everywhere that you go, you can just see the old

Collin  19:21

customs house building.

Brandon  19:23

Right. It's this like super huge stone Clocktower deal. It's the old customs house at the end of Long Wharf, which was like over a mile long the end of the war in Boston, but like, because that part is they'd haven't built up too much down there. You can see it all over the place. So there's always this landmark so you kind of can tell where you are, right? Oh, that's neat, though.

19:49

It's kind of

Brandon  19:50

handy if you're doing a lot of walking around like downtown north in Boston. It's real handy because you can just like It's kind of it's like a big landmark. And other buildings are that way too. But it's like the most like distinctive one, you know, because it's like this really big, huge old stone edifice with a big huge clock on it, and a pointy roof. So

Collin  20:15

you can like,

Brandon  20:17

just always see where you are. So you're just walking around downtown. Even if you'd like way over by the comment, you can still see it. So you're like, oh, okay, if I want any sort of base, your whole Boston downtown north in Boston life around that place, and then you can just kind of navigate pretty easily. So

Collin  20:33

that's actually super helpful, right? Especially if you're going to places be heavily one thing to stare at and be like, you never leave my site.

Brandon  20:41

Yeah. So like in New York, this is not possible, right? Because everything is so enormous, like you can't see past it. Because Boston, there's like other skyscrapers and stuff there. But like, the, a lot of the other buildings are lower. So you can still you can see them. So you can be like, Okay, I gotta go that way. Boom. And after you walk around for like a day, you kind of get a basic understanding of where things are. So you can be like, Oh, I'm gonna go over there. Oh, I know. We go over there we go that way, right. So it's very cool. Boston is extremely walkable. Right? It's really great. That other weird thing about like a lot of like a lot of Boston, a lot of actually all of the city's sidewalks. Some of the walking is like,

Collin  21:31

it's all brick, right? Or cobblestone.

Brandon  21:35

And like, they're like granite block cobblestone. So it's extremely uneven.

Collin  21:39

Oh, this would be death to me that in my ankles.

Brandon  21:43

I was thinking about this. I was thinking about that. I was walking over like a particularly long stretch of like, uneven cobblestones. And I was like, man, Colin and his barefoot shoes would probably not love this very much at all. It would be horrible. Because

Collin  22:03

it's just so big. Right?

Brandon  22:06

So I didn't I didn't think about that. That's a little bit of an interesting thing there. Also, a lot of the curbs are just granted, which is also kind of weird, right? Like, they're just like, granite. Everything. Like literally everything is just rock. Oh, wow. It's all stone.

22:22

That's crazy.

Brandon  22:25

So it's a little bit weird, but it's kind of cool, right? That's cool.

22:31

But it makes it interesting. It's like very visually interesting. But sometimes, you gotta be a little bit careful, because it's just like, oh, no, I'm, I'm gonna fall down now.

Collin  22:45

It's not gonna go well. Huh? Big I sent you a picture of my foot on the thing. Maybe in a minute. Okay, but

Brandon  22:57

eagerly. Wait. Yeah, that was cool. Which is the just kind of walk around there. So I really like Boston. Awesome. It's been plus bonus material. We got to go on a duck tour. You know, like the ride the duck boat things? Yeah.

Collin  23:12

Where did you go on that? Where they were? They take you.

Brandon  23:15

But the Charles River. Right? Oh, we got to go down the Charles River kind of see Boston from the river that goes into the harbor. Excuse me. Have so we got to go.

23:27

Come on. Now. He's

Brandon  23:31

got to get it right here for the funeral. Right. That's what you're talking about.

Collin  23:37

That's true. That's true. And most importantly to this story.

Brandon  23:43

They let me drive the duck in the water. So

23:46

okay, well.

Brandon  23:52

I guess it's part of their stick. They'll like let volunteer because in the water. It's like really this huge, wide river. So like, what? What he gets and then like, let people volunteer to drive it and like nobody was doing it. Like, none of the kids wanted to do it. And I was like, I'll do it. Let me in there. Let me add it. Let's go.

Collin  24:11

You know, this is this is how there's a submarine down at 30,000 feet right now is somebody trying?

Brandon  24:16

Jackets. We had things it was okay. Ah, I ever wondered how the steering on a duck was in the water. Yeah, the answer is sluggish.

24:32

I didn't think it was a catamaran out there. I know

Collin  24:40

well, that's really Yeah, I mean, it is interesting people in those situations how they're, they all just stand there. They're like no, I don't want to be the first it's like why why just go like it's being offered. It's not a trick question. What do you do if you're gonna be arrested like tomorrow?

Brandon  24:55

Yeah, right. This happened several times because like we were all walking together and stuff with like this big group people like I be walking and I'd realized like, Oh, I'm far ahead, so I should stop. I'd stop and like lean in a doorway and kind of take pictures of some random side streets and stuff and then everyone would get up to me and then they would stop.

Collin  25:11

I'm not wait, why do

25:14

you not just keep going? What's happening?

Collin  25:18

is waiting for you? I didn't want to lose you. Last month. Yeah.

Brandon  25:28

Yeah, then we went to Salem. Salem was pretty cool. I like seeing them a lot. It's very like

Collin  25:35

I don't know, you think like

Brandon  25:37

colonialism, like colonial house architecture? That is basically Salem, right? It's really cool. Okay. But we did do the walking goes to her. Salem? Sick, right? It was?

Collin  25:51

No, I have never been on a ghost tour or, or anything like that. How do how do those work? Like, do they? Do they give you a preamble of like, here's expectations, or here's what to look for? Or, like, I think it depends on

Brandon  26:06

the guy, person guide, I guess that you're going with, right? Because like, our guy was like, mega chill, like, and he just kind of like walked around. And we'll just like talk about, like, the history of the places. And like, maybe the events that happened there because like, sometimes it's like, you know, there was murder that happened in this alleyway, you know, and it's like crazy. And he would kind of tell you the story about that and like, give you a lot of like, the background information and stuff like that. So he was he was really good, right? He was real chill about it. He was just talking about like, oh, like, you know, down the street, like we go to the house and like, this is the guy this is the judge at the Salem Witch Trial house. Right? It's now a motel and people that stay here report being like shaking in their sleep and like, acting like they can't talk because he would like interrogate people. Right? So he was kind of give you the historical context of that kind of stuff.

Collin  26:56

Sure. Right.

Brandon  26:58

It unfortunately did get cut a little bit short because it started like pouring. Okay, well, I guess, like pouring down rain for a little bit. So that was cool. It suspiciously started pouring down rain, like when we're standing outside of the house that inspired the video game or the game Clue. That's fun. It was murder. And they're also inspired a Lovecraft short story. So that's yeah, you know, conveniently started raining like right around there. Why quickly that mean?

27:31

Well, yeah. Yeah.

Brandon  27:33

Run away.

Collin  27:34

nakliye. Lee with a quickness?

Brandon  27:39

Oh, yeah. That was that was really cool. And then the next morning we like, skipped by the USS Constitution. To see it a little bit before we headed down to New York.

Collin  27:52

So that was pretty cool. The boat,

Brandon  27:57

everything. New York was fun. Like driving around in New York.

Collin  28:03

Not fun. Walking in New York. Much better just walking.

Brandon  28:11

We walked forever. On one of the days in New York. I think we literally walked

Collin  28:15

10 miles. Right. Whoa,

Brandon  28:17

okay, that's a walk like 10 miles. It was like crazy. A lot. That's a lot. A lot a lot.

Collin  28:22

It is a lot.

Brandon  28:23

We walked all over the place. We walked through Central Park, which is really cool. We walked down and like basically just down Fifth Avenue. Right? Like the long way is also cool. Cuz that's where a lot of the big buildings and stuff are. We were weirdly, were walking around and we went to go see like Grand Central Station. Right? Because I mean, you have to do that. That's required. I'm walking around Grand Central Station. We come out. We start walking down the sidewalk. We hear somebody start yelling Susan. Right. Every turn around and it is this lady from the school we weren't

Collin  29:04

what Oh,

Brandon  29:06

yeah. It's somebody like Susan's going forever. Her and her kids were like, taken on this binge eating ice cream.

Collin  29:12

Or like what in the heck what in the world is happening? How does that happen? I have absolutely no idea. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. It was so funny. Like saying they're like, What in the world is going on right now? is so weird. And they were just on there visiting and stuff as well. They were just Yeah, yeah, they

Brandon  29:50

were just on vacation with their family. They were just hanging out eating ice cream on bench and like

Collin  29:55

we saw them. So who knew? Oh, that's really weird. Yeah, it is, isn't it?

Brandon  30:10

Yeah, we just walked around like forever. We went eight. And then we got to go to the Empire State building an empire state building. Very cool. So we had to do the whole deal, right? Going out there. But we were on the roof on not the roof. But like, we got to the top floor of the empire state building our ticket thing was at like, nine o'clock. So it was like New York City at night, on top of the tri state building.

Collin  30:35

Yeah, that's

Brandon  30:37

pretty fantastic. I'm not gonna lie.

Collin  30:39

Did did you feel like that man? Did you?

Brandon  30:45

Yeah, a little bit towards the end at the beginning, right? You walk out. So the 80th floor is like the first observation floor. And it's like, it's all like inside with Windows and like display things and stuff, right? And then you go, so you take the big Express elevator up to the 88th floor. And then you can go up six more floors to the 86th floor, which is the big outdoor

Collin  31:09

thing where everyone takes pictures, right? So when, you know,

Brandon  31:17

when you're on the 80th floor, you're looking at the window and you're like, Oh, I'm on the I'm not gonna lie to you. When I was standing on the 86th floor, and I walked up to the edge, I had a few moments of like, you look down and you kind of go Hold on this wall here real quick. It went away after a minute, but like, the initial reaction was, ah,

Collin  31:45

yeah, you're very high right now. So that's something you encounter every day, that's for sure. No,

Brandon  31:51

no, it's not. It's just like, yeah. You know, it's very kind of awkward, like, and then it kind of settles down. You're like, okay, I'm good. Fine. And we sort of just kind of walked around all the sides and took like, 70,000 pictures and stuff, but it was really cool there. Yeah. And it wasn't as windy as I thought it was gonna be. Oh, little it was always windy than I expected,

Collin  32:12

typical or atypical? Or did they? Did anybody mentioned the wind where they're like, oh, it's yeah, they said

Brandon  32:17

a crystal potentially be windy or colder up there. It wasn't too bad.

Collin  32:21

Really. So, you know, was a pretty nice night all together. Oh, that's

32:29

mine. So it's pretty fun.

Collin  32:31

What's um, I mean, did you have any, I mean, just big takeaways, like perspectives change, or the things that you least expected? Or anything that you were surprised by, while traveling about?

32:44

Um,

Brandon  32:49

I don't know. I really, I didn't really know what to expect about places like Philadelphia at all. Like, I really had no idea. Like, I was like, I don't know what Beats me. Right. I

32:58

just walked around looking for Adrian.

Brandon  33:01

Yeah, I did run up the Rocky Steps at the museum. I'm not gonna lie. I didn't Well, man, me and my friend. Were like talking about it. And we're like, are you gonna do it? And he's like, I don't know. And I was like, well, he's like, What are you about yours? Like, I don't know, a little. And we got there just like, I could go for it. Let's do it. Whatever. Like.

Collin  33:29

They're really good steps for running.

Brandon  33:32

Because they're, like, not really tall. They're kind of wide. Right? So I got a good cadence of this like skipping steps, right? Just like skip a step. And it was like a really good rhythm. Like, all the way up.

33:48

Because a lot of steps. It's kind of you have to have an awkward gait. I'll say to get up them enough. Who runs stadium stairs or even stairs? Yeah, buildings. They're kind of awkward. Yeah, they're like, shorter. Right? And, like, more narrow because like when we walk because there was a big wait for the elevator, the Empire State Building. So like, you could walk down six floors and catch the elevator down there.

Brandon  34:09

It'd be much faster. So I'm gonna like, okay, but those stairs are like, very narrow and kind of steep ish. So like, don't run those ones. Alright. Do not recommend okay. I can stairs we're running. Really stairs though.

Collin  34:25

Not too bad. Not too bad. Right. The other thing I think

Brandon  34:29

about your because like if you think it's gonna be like just the most crowded place ever. Right? And that is all basically only true in like Times Square. Right? Because we went to Times Square we did the thing right just as you have to write and but like, there's that's the only place where there's like a billion people. Right? If you go like one street over and perhaps find another Dunkin Donuts, right, just saying maybe, yeah, could a person could do that. All right, good. Because we had some time right before we had to go do stuff when they're like, Yeah, world, you know, just meet us down here in like, you know, an hour. And so like a lot of people wanted to go into like the shops and just kind of check it out right and they wanted to go like my friend wanted to go to the Hard Rock because she does like a hard rock collection.

Collin  35:21

One of those people. Yeah. So like, you know,

Brandon  35:26

do I want to go into all the shops on times where I earn the thing? No, I don't really need my shelving. I wanted we didn't go into the swatch store just because you know, why not? Like we just kind of walked around some more to the other blocks and we're on the other block was like this did not that many people like just like a very normal number of people just out walking around going to eat whatever, go into the Dunkin

Collin  35:54

the dude, right and like his way chill. So like he has it wasn't

Brandon  36:00

expected there to be like a lot of people and like there were like,

Collin  36:05

it wasn't like really overwhelming. It wasn't like that bad. You know? All right.

Brandon  36:15

That's cool. We did go to Off Broadway play, as well. Of let's have a small musical review for you this evening. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, so bonus bonus time. We have a review for the Broadway off Broadway musical. It is called Shocked. Shocked? Yeah, like like the corn. Right? Like it's basically a musical centered around corn. We start at a neater Landor Theatre, which is pretty cool is built in late 1912. It's pretty cool in there. The musical is basically small town whose livelihood depends on corn. Corn starts dying for mysterious reasons. Naive girl who nobody believes in, decides she's going to leave to the big city to find help for the corn.

Collin  37:18

So kind of like your country mouse trope,

Brandon  37:22

right? Yes. She goes to the big city of Tampa, Florida, for some reason. Weird lines. Yeah, it is kind of weird. More on that in a minute. Find somebody to help her. But he's a shyster. Oh, no, he doesn't really know about corn. He just needs money. Uh huh. Right. So it's like a little music Manny, right. He's like, trying to con him into doing the stuff a little bit right. Outsider comes in and cons. And then shenanigans into,

Collin  37:55

you know, all that stuff. So

Brandon  37:58

it was pretty funny. The jokes. There's like 20,000,000,001 liners in that play,

Collin  38:03

which are hysterical. Right. So that was pretty good. It

Brandon  38:09

was really funny. Overall, the good songs were great. I felt like the singer lady, the main character, they were like, Hey, listen to Reba McIntyre. And just sing like that, because that's kind of what she sounded like. So here's that. Here's the weird part that I was I got stuck on because I am pedantic sometimes, right? Hmm. anachronisms bother me. I was like, sitting there. And I'm looking at this and like, everything is like extremely southern. Right? They have Southern accents that were in like overalls and like talking about like distilling corn liquor and all this

Collin  38:46

stuff. And I'm sitting there going, corn doesn't grow in the South. No, that's it.

Brandon  38:54

Like, if you look at like top 10 Most corn producing states. They're all like, Iowa, Nebraska. Kansas, right? But like, these people are speaking very southern. And I'm like, What is going on? That part bothered me slightly. But other than that, the rest of it was funny. Maybe it's like Tennessee or Kentucky because you can grow some corn in Kentucky. So maybe, maybe they're thinking Kentucky but either way, it's a little bit weird, but

Collin  39:29

other than that, it's fine. Right? Yeah, okay. Well, I mean, besides that one hiccup, though, I mean, how it ended the people that was the crowd's reaction to it was it generally you know, okay,

Brandon  39:41

so that was the other thing it was very interesting. Like, this is the the only this is one of the only times I've watched a theater like a theater production in a place where like, people really like theater productions a lot. So the crowd was like Mega into everything. So that made the whole thing like just like much more fun to be around, right? Like the environment that I was watching it in was pretty cool, right? Because lots of people were cheering and reacting and clapping and stuff like that. So it was like a fun environment.

Collin  40:12

Well, that's help. That's nice, though. I mean, that makes it more of an experience to be in instead of just watching something like that.

Brandon  40:19

Yeah, yeah. Cuz theater is a more like, interactive thing anyway, you know, because like, as you're laughing, they just kind of like, stop and like, try not to, you know, do all that stuff. But like, there was just a really good, the rest of the crowd was like, really into it, too. So that made it really good. So I think it's got good reviews. It's pretty fun. It's pretty funny. So you could watch shucks, not for the children.

40:42

Okay, so So audiences.

Brandon  40:45

Yeah, so like, not really, there's a few jokes in there that I like. Right? And that is not for the kids. Right? You know, but overall, it's pretty fun. Just want to say that so you don't take your small children to go see Shep riding a fun family musical because that's not exactly what you're gonna find. Other things about New York that were interesting. Were like we like we did. We did like to Ellis Island Statue of Liberty tour stuff. That was cool, by the way, but like, we got separated on the ferry because they just click you in and there's like a certain capacity number. So Susan, I got on the ferry and like, a bunch of other people didn't. So like, we just were waiting on the other side, and the ferry lands like Battery Park. So we're just like, Okay, we got like, 30 minutes before it comes out. So we just like hung out in the park. Super awesome. It was really cool. I just have like all these like random chairs, just like sitting in this field. And

Collin  41:48

you can just like,

Brandon  41:50

hang out, do whatever. So we just kind of sat around people watched in the car. Really fun, right? Like very way lower Manhattan was where we are now. So like, that was really cool. Just kind of chillin, and just kind of watching all the stuff, you know. And then the other thing that we got to do that was like, just kind of spur the moment and random is we walked on the highline thing. The what? You know what? There's no, you know, the highlight is, I don't. So it's like, an old aboveground train track, right. And they don't like the 80s or something. They're like, above ground trains or too much in Manhattan, we can't have this right. And so they just sort of abandon it for a really long time. Until eventually, I don't remember how long ago this was, but somebody's like, Yo, what if we turned it into like a greenway trail?

Collin  42:40

Oh, like we do here where we take old railtrail railroad trails terms, like bike paths and stuff.

Brandon  42:46

Yeah. Right. That's what they did with this, except for it's an elevated train pack track.

42:50

Okay, that sounds really cool.

Brandon  42:53

It's, it's really sweet. It's like, super awesome. Like, it's really cool. You can like just go up there. And it's kind of on the, it's on the west side of like, Manhattan.

Collin  43:06

And you just go up there

Brandon  43:08

and walk around, it's goes the old train route. It's just like this big long thing. And it's just a big walking path. You don't have to worry about traffic, there's nothing. It's like, free trees and plants and flowers, like everywhere, it's really, really cool. And they like at least have benches all over once a while you can just like, hang out. Like the big things where the trains used to go like through the buildings, you know, that's still there. So it's just like this big. cupboard part. But it's like grass and stuff growing everywhere. They left the train tracks in some places. So if you look kind of over in the bushes, there's just like train tracks

Collin  43:45

running through trees. It's like, it's really cool. Oh, that's cool if they kept it like to ask. Yeah, so it's like a

Brandon  43:56

kind of a random thing we'd like you wouldn't really think about like, but that part was like way cool. Like, I just really liked it. It was really neat.

Collin  44:06

Just like architecturally,

Brandon  44:09

conceptually, right. It's just really cool. Really fun to just sort of walk on this, like, you don't have to worry about traffic. He's kind of slowed down. And now how do they

Collin  44:19

how do they handle? I guess they've built a little off ramps into certain locations, or is it kind of

Brandon  44:24

stairs that go down? Or in some places? They have elevators, right? There's just like, yeah, there's just like, stops, right? Where you walk up and then like, off to the side, there's the stairs staircase that goes down. You know, these are probably the old like stations and stuff. I would imagine. That's Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes total sense. And there's just like, there's just like, stairs there. You just get off, you know? And it's not like you can't like go every block. You know what I mean? Like if you you have to kind of plan when you need to go down. Sure. Right. But that's really cool if there and it's really neat, because you're just like just above the tree All right, just a little bit up. So it's like way, it's like a different world. All of a sudden, you just like hanging out, walking around. It's really flowery. You know,

Collin  45:09

it was really

Brandon  45:11

neat. Just like a fun like bonus. Like, oh,

Collin  45:15

I didn't, you know, I know this was here, but like,

45:19

this is actually really cool. To

Brandon  45:25

Yeah, it's like a way different experience what you would expect walking through the busiest city in the United States, right? Like, I'm just hanging out on a path up here. There's like, nobody

Collin  45:42

but yeah, it was.

Brandon  45:45

That was kind of nuts. But yeah, it's fun. Yeah. Great. Yeah, New York was more fun than I expected. Because like, I didn't know how far like it again, I didn't know if the PEEP like,

Collin  45:55

many people think it was weird. But like, I really got into it. Like, you never felt claustrophobic or anything like that, really. And now, mostly because like, nobody cares that you're there.

Brandon  46:12

That part is kind of that part is definitely true, like us walking around. And people just like, they still don't look at you that much. But they're like, No, you're there. And they'll just like, kind of move out of the way. Like everybody just kind of like is looking around and they just are. They're all weaving in and out of each other. And so like, they're acknowledging you, but like, they see you, but they don't care what you're doing. Right. Just like, whatever. Like. So kind of cool, right? It's nice just to be you know, there was it wasn't as bad because like, no people aren't like, you know, pressing up and all that stuff. Like it was it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Like, you think, you know, with the images you get on like TV and stuff you think like everything is going to be like Times Square. Every other streets just like whatever.

Collin  47:00

Like there's a lot of people but it's not like overwhelming, you know? So pretty nice. Pretty cool. Wow, good. I'm glad you had that sounds like a really fun trip and a lot of fun anytime. That sounds like you dodged the bullet of the air quality and have a bridge collapsing. And so

Brandon  47:27

the job yeah.

Collin  47:30

Yeah, it was pretty crazy.

Brandon  47:33

So yeah, that was pretty much it. Right? We did. Philly was pretty cool. Did for one day, just kind of like see the big stuff. Here's the Independence Hall. Here's the Liberty bill. Boom.

Collin  47:42

All that. And then,

Brandon  47:46

yeah, DC. The biggest coolest part about DC is we got to go to the Museum of Natural History.

Collin  47:51

Oh, it's actually fun. Yeah, that's why that's that's how you ended it. Right? in DC. Yeah. In DC. Yeah. Okay.

Brandon  48:03

So also the weather was like super great. Like, the whole time it did rain, like a little bit in New York, but like, it was fine. We didn't it wasn't that long. That's we got we took the subway somewhere. So that was also experienced, but like, the weather was like pretty nice. In Boston. It was like 70 That's the only reason they got like Boston because they had the best weather. Yeah, that's probably why DC is so far down the list also, because in DC, it was like 90, so it was like so hot. Oh, no. So we were walking around the day we left. We did a morning we did the because we didn't leave to like the afternoon. We didn't we didn't leave till like five o'clock. Right.

Collin  48:45

So our flight was at five. It got delayed a little bit, but

Brandon  48:51

so we had like, all morning and early afternoon to do stuff. So we went and did the Capitol tour, you know, which is fine. And then we went to Arlington Cemetery, which is really cool.

49:02

Yeah, that's really hard. The only place

Brandon  49:05

in DC there's any hills is

Collin  49:07

Arlington Cemetery. So Oh, no. Wow,

Brandon  49:14

that combo was like, kind of killer. Right? Like

Collin  49:21

yeah, that might be why

Brandon  49:22

DC was farther down on my list because it was so hot there. And everywhere else was a nice temperature.

Collin  49:28

Yeah. Like Well, I would like to enjoy this a little bit more if I weren't literally melting right now.

Brandon  49:34

Yeah, yeah. So that kind of put a damper on things. The

Collin  49:36

temperature was rough. So

Brandon  49:44

that's probably why I now think about it. That might be why it made it further disperses down on my list because it was the hottest place I went. So. Okay, so now. Now we're if I'm seeing some patterns here, yeah. Yeah. And my favorite part about Busy in Washington DC was not in Washington, DC. So that's probably also like, other than the museums. Those are cool. We went to the Holocaust Museum also, which is also really great.

Collin  50:10

Yeah, we went to Mount Vernon Washington's house. Yeah.

Brandon  50:14

And that was fantastic. But that's also in Virginia. So like, it's

50:21

like so close. So close.

Brandon  50:24

Yeah. And yet it's very far away. So.

Collin  50:28

Oh, no. Yeah, that was my

Brandon  50:33

favorite part about Washington DC was being in Virginia being at George Washington's house that was traveling to other

Collin  50:39

places, right. So yeah. That works. That works. It's fine. Yeah, that's

Brandon  50:48

fine. Fine. Fine. Totally fine. Well, good.

50:52

Good.

Collin  50:54

I'm glad that that went well. Yeah, it was fun, though. Really fun. But, yeah,

Brandon  51:03

the flight back was a little bit dicey. Because there was like, starting to weather in Washington, DC. Oh, no. So like, we I guess just we got to had to wait around for a while. We tried to board the plane real quick. We tried to, you know, do stuff and then we got stuck on the runway, just because they were like, no traffic. Air traffic control was like, like, we were one of the last flights out? Uh, yes. So we left like an hour late. But I think after that the storms really came through and they just grounded all flights. And so like, some of the other people that were with us that were flying like home somewhere else. They got stuck. There.

51:46

I followed. You guys got out of time.

Brandon  51:49

We like literally just sneaked out right in time. Which means we had to like sprint through the Atlanta airport, which is not a fun experience, because Atlanta airport is enormous.

52:06

Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon  52:17

But he's a trainer. So what are you been up to? Well, I've been

Collin  52:25

well, not not a homerun. No. Yeah, April, you've been in the northeast, I've been in the Midwest, doing Midwestern things. Enjoying the it's finally getting hot. Right. So the summer is finally starting to pick up. I was a little concerned for a while when, like, the first two weeks of June and it was still, like 7580.

Brandon  52:49

That's fine. That's not like,

Collin  52:51

Not that I'm complaining. But I also know it's one of those things of like, look, the longer we wait for the heat to turn on. Like, the worse it's going to be. So we just need to, you know, worse, it's gonna get whenever it shows up, right. You just need to get this over with.

Brandon  53:06

So yeah, that's a good point.

Collin  53:08

You know, ya know, and it's so yeah, we've been just I've been, I've been busy doing a lot of preparing for it. Do you have a new hire? That's coming on? In a couple days. So that's wonderful. I will not have to be doing morning things for it very soon. So I'm very happy thrillingly, I know, much, much rejoicing. It's been fine, but it's like, I'm also you know, hashtag done. So. It's all good, right? Just part of it. So we've, it's been weird. We've been, we've started one client who's like, Hey, we're gonna go over to Tokyo for like, and month and need to come over four times a day for an month. Cool by so that's, that was a big stress. get way, way, way, way, way. Way. Hold on. Yeah. Thankfully, they were terrifying. Well, they're an existing client. And they did this last year, they disappeared for like, a whole month last year, only last year. We were just taking care of their kin, because they had just gotten their their dog and their dog was like 10 months old, or like, no, like 10 weeks. It was super young. I forget. No. Yeah, it was like 10 weeks old. 12. Yeah, it was very young. And so it couldn't like the week that I recognized. Like we can't take care of this dog. Like it's still basically potty training at this point. Like there's no way this is. So I had to tell them, like, yeah, you need to you need to take your dog to a place to board and here's your here's some information and bubble blob. So it was it was fine. But now this year, they were like, well, we don't we don't want to do that. We want you guys to take care of them. So that's why we were doing, you know, four times a day. And it's, it was just a reminder, like we sat down and had to do like, a lot of planning of okay, what are the tasks that you're doing at the first visit? And then what are the tasks that are specific to the second visit? And the third visit? Because if we just said, you know, go and do your stuff? Well, there's so much, there's so many things that could go wrong, that will get missed, because it's an entire month. And so we, we, we got rid of the things that were like, oh, only do this, quote unquote, every other day. It's like, if we're doing it every other day, we're just going to do it every day so that we don't forget, because we we can't, we can't forget.

Brandon  55:49

That makes sense, right? Like, I

55:50

got that.

Collin  55:52

Yeah, yeah. So things like brushing, right? All of a sudden, we Eleanor is gone a month, brushing both the dog and the cat is extremely important, right? If they're gone for a weekend, if we don't get to it, not that big of a deal. But given both of these kinds of dog and cat brushing is extremely important. Otherwise, they'd come back to just dreadlocks. So we now have to stay on top of that. So if we're brushing these, we're doing that what time so what can we do another time? And when are we turning on the sprinklers? And oh, by the way, they have extensive potted plants and who's wanting their tomatoes? And like it was just so you know, a lot. So it's, you know, and it's, this is what we, it's what we do, and it's what people you know, they they want us to do. So we can do it. But it was like that kicked off this week. And so we've been just like, head down into that. We had, oh, we decided that we were going to switch software's this week as well. So that's been fun, where we're like, what if? What if we just took the entire guts and operations of our business? And changed it? What if we did that? How would that would that make everybody happy? Would that be fun? Right? Right?

Brandon  57:04

Yeah, I'd probably be a cakewalk. Right.

Collin  57:06

So you would do fine. Yeah. So we have been working with clients and getting everybody switched over and trying to explain the pros and cons. No, not, not the cons. But like the pros of this. And

Brandon  57:26

bad, all right, the worst

Collin  57:27

that's gonna tell you the cons of this, because you know, like, it's not, it's not all rainbows and butterflies.

57:34

But it does, it's just going to help us a lot. I know, one feature that clients, some clients aren't really going to like, is, right now we do a lot of real time charging, where we show up to the visit, and we charge at that visit, we just click a button and charges because of their saved thing. The new system is very heavy on

Collin  57:55

on invoicing. And so now we're, which is something we've never done before with either. So so. So now we're having to get into the Okay, what we're not, we're no longer able to do daily charging, we have to do weekly, charging right at a time, so on, like the Friday coming up, like that's going to charge you on for all the things that you want us to do next week, like that's how we're gonna have to do this. And that's just a different way of thinking than, than we've trained clients to do. And so communicating that, making sure they understand how to do that, but also showing them a lot of the power and like, hey, remember how you're writing a lot of notes before you leave, like you have to do that anymore, because you just update your profile, and it all goes everywhere. Like, isn't that wonderful? Trying to point them back to these resources, it's gonna help staff a lot to have, like, have, they update client updates in one place that automatically sheets that information everywhere, it needs to go Megan and I don't have to manually move it from place to place, which is really nice. Like, that's, I'm very excited about that. So

59:07

that's a big one. And then it sends a bunch of reminders and all this other stuff. So just but making that move is hard. And so I I spent an hour today, going over to different times for a total of an hour an hour, sitting down with a client and walking through the problems that they were having, and the issues that they were with putting in their information and such. So, but that's just like, okay, that's, that's what we have to do to get this to get this done. And so I had to go in and find all of the buttons and all of the links that were squirreled in all these corners of our website and tear all those out and put new ones in. Right It was like it was like Is that a booking button? Or is that a question button is an Email button or is that an activate button so

Collin  59:53

like I was a hunting all these things down? Because what we didn't want like we like first off like I don't want to be paying Are two software's at the same time for too long. So the sooner we can make this transition happen, right. And here's the other thing. Now my staff members and us are having to juggle two different calendars, because I can't sync all of my existing bookings from one software to another. Like, it's just, it's physically unable to do that. So it's like for timing everybody, like when you check your schedule, like you have to check both software's to see what's on your schedule. And then it was a reminder for us of like, when a booking comes in through the new one, we have to go look at the old one to see where we can put you. So it's going to be really clunky for a while. But that's fine. It's part of that. And so far, everybody loves it. The best part about it for the staff is we went, Megan went through and created a bunch of little checkboxes. So you can just say, like, check to poop, check to water, check to, you know, pee check, like you just things over. And it's nice, because then you don't have to waste the time writing the symptoms of you know, Baxter went poop and pee on the walk, and the poop looked really good. Like, that's a whole sentence that you don't need to write anymore. And it's also a good reminder to the staff member, whenever you're looking at those little tick marks to go, Oh, I didn't check the door to say that I locked it. So I'm just gonna go run over real quick and click right. So it kind of acts as a little checklist for us as well, when we're in the field, doing these visits, to make sure that we don't miss anything. So that's I'm excited about that aspect of as well.

Brandon  1:01:39

Yeah, that's nice that it kind of functions. Is that like a dual purpose thing? Right? You're, like not only telling the clients what you've done, but also being like, the way they Yeah, like you said, make sure you do all the things.

Collin  1:01:53

Right, yeah, cuz sometimes I can have a sentence that's like, before I left, I made sure that I scooped the water or sorry, scoop the litter refreshed the water topped off the food bowls and scrubbed out the dishes, right? Like, yeah, all of that now is just little checkmarks next to things. And I did have one client asked on the poop checkmark, because they have these emojis that go with them. So you can see an emoji. It's not an emoji. It's a little pic. Picture, little graphic icon. He was like, Oh, does it have different sizes for the poop? And I was like, no, no. Does it? Yeah, that's not something that we do. So that's fine. It's that's a yes. That's yeah, so that was that was a big thing of getting that that all switched over into new, the new software or clients. So we will we will continue to learn. Learn from that. as we as we move on. So yeah, it's been it's been a it's been a an interesting transition so far. We did a, we were invited to do an event at a senior living center community thing, where they were like, oh, yeah, like, we want to host a bunch of vendors to come out because the it used to be called one thing. And then a company had bought it out. And they were having a grand reopening to showcase. Oh, I just have a mic sorry. To showcase the new owners and blah, blah, blah, and invite a bunch of people out. And so they're like, Hey, would you like to come put up a booth about your business? Because we know you service a few people that live here? And we were like, Yeah, sure, that'd be that'd be fun. That'd be great. And they're like, we're having barbecue. And you guys can go through the line and eat all the foods that you want, or like, we'll be there. Even better. That's why they're Bob. So it felt a little weird, because all like, they don't have an event space here. So what they did was they just strung the vendors throughout all of the hallways. So that as people took turns sorry, go ahead. Sorry.

Brandon  1:04:32

They don't have like a common room or like a dining room.

Collin  1:04:36

Well, that's, that's where they were eating though. Right? That's where the buffet line was for all of the food. Oh, that's a good point. Right. And the tables, everything. They wanted it to be an inside event because they have I mean it's 127,000 square foot complex. So like, they want to showcase off the inside. And so they did have a band playing out tires and chairs out there but All of the vendor space, all the eating and dining and food was inside. And so their thought was, and it's an okay thought of, oh, we'll have vendors in the halls and then that way as people take tours or explore, they'll find vendors. And no, no, this was

Brandon  1:05:20

a terrible idea to get lost in the labyrinth of hallways,

Collin  1:05:23

yes. And nobody had any idea of like, do I keep going? How much further does this go down? Do I, who, who is down there? Is there anybody down there. And so we were fortunate enough to sitemap, there was no site map, there were no signs. And like, we were trying to encourage people like, Oh, and there's some more people over there. And they'd like, look down the hall, and then turn and walk away, right, because they were like, I don't want to walk all the way down

Brandon  1:05:50

here, or look at a big hall and don't see anybody like,

Collin  1:05:54

right and having to convince them of like, no, really keep going. The other thing would have been nice if

Brandon  1:06:01

there was like a, like a walk it like just like, you know, like, even like arrows on the wall this way to blank this way too.

Collin  1:06:09

But they should have had that they really should have. And instead they did not walk in is the first time another vendor was like, yeah, they should have had like punch cards or stamp cards or something. Right, like, given us all a stamp and then they could have entered to win a drawing for something like that would have been, I would have been better, it would encourage people to get out. And look now I will say this is a this is a retirement community with with independent, and then assisted living, and then enhanced assisted living with sections. Which means that you know, these, the people who were attending weren't like, running up and down the halls. Right? They so there is that aspect as well of like that exploration was limited because of that. But it felt weird, because we were also the only like, local business of like, local, local, there were representatives from branches of other larger corporations that were there. One lady was from a company out of Nashville. And she flew into St. Louis, and then drove over just for this event. And so we're, we were like, really? Yeah, we were like, like, Hey, we're the dog walkers and pet sitters. Hi. And people were like, Hi, we're the insurance people. Like we can help you with Medicare and Medicaid and get you like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, benefits. And then like, Hi, we're from a rehabilitation center. And then Hi, we're from so it was, it felt very odd. And then I will say like, we're, we're standing there, I'm in flip flops, shorts, and my pet sitter shirts, and all the other vendors are like, you know, dressed up and like, you know, conference the attire and like business casual. Hey, hi, people. Would you like a tennis ball and a poop bag holder?

Brandon  1:08:09

Absolutely.

Aaron  1:08:11

Yes. What did I just walk in on? Oh,

Collin  1:08:16

I was just retelling the story of being a vendor at a retirement complex that service. So and being feeling very out of out of out of place, which is fine, which is fine. Because it's like, Look, I'm not here for you vendors because let's be real like I am you know, we're getting this take care of so it was very Yeah, it was it was it was it was good. It was okay. And we enjoyed that very much. Got some nice compliments from people so that felt nice. And was able to take those to the to the staff and share those with them

Brandon  1:08:59

and just tell them any signs on your card, like how can we help improve this event? signage? Is

Collin  1:09:13

anything airman Brandon just told him his East Coast adventure. What is yours? What was yours? Like? Oh, wow, okay. On the spot. Um, so

Aaron  1:09:29

we we just got back from a honeymoon, what was that a week ago, two weeks ago. And it's just been a whirlwind since I'm, I'm now a head coach and doing all the head coach responsibilities. Like today I was mowing the field because it hadn't been mowed and forever. And doing all that stuff and shaking hands and kissing babies yada yada yada. When people find out your head coach, they want to pick your brain and they want to ask you all the questions. I'm like, I just I just got here I don't I know Don't know where the bathroom even is. So, grass. What do you want? I know, little time a little tired. I didn't eat lunch. So I was like scarfing subway down what I on the way here and I'm probably dehydrated and I have a cat laying on me. So I'm a little bit

Collin  1:10:12

discombobulated. Um, so we,

Aaron  1:10:17

after many moons of discussing of actually like where we wanted to go, either, you know, we wanted to go on a cruise, or let's go out of the country, but I don't have a passport. I didn't really want to deal with that. And so we wanted to do a road trip because flying especially now is kind of a nightmare, especially the last time we had like, seven flights canceled on us. So we were just gonna skip all that. So we either had a toss up between going to the New England area, if we were brand new and

Brandon  1:10:46

can recommend go to Boston or

Collin  1:10:51

go

Aaron  1:10:52

south. And I was like, well, let's go let's go someplace interesting where we both like that has history because she'll be really likes history, and I like history and someplace that just kind of a little bit more low key and chill. And so we decided to go to

Collin  1:11:08

the southeast

Aaron  1:11:10

where our trip or road trip started from Tulsa, Oklahoma. And we drove to Nashville, Tennessee, which is like eight hours

Brandon  1:11:21

to drive. I'm like

Collin  1:11:24

this This trip will be easy. No, it was awful.

Aaron  1:11:28

Arkansas, stop being so big. Like you're just unnecessarily big. And once you get past like, you know, little rock and all that it's just wrote in trees. And that's it. I feel like the rest of Arkansas doesn't exist because you can't see it because it just treeline like it's just forest in a row. And that's it. So when through Memphis, got to Nashville, kind of was more of the downtown part of Nashville little more the hipster kind of vibe. Not that wasn't intentional. We just had no idea. state of this really nice Airbnb with this. Which I guess I don't know how Airbnbs work because I've used them before. And they're very like, Yep, there's the key. There's this see? Yeah, but it's like the people wanted to meet us. They wanted to introduce themselves. They wanted to take us on a tour. And it's like someone's house and they're living like on the other side of it. So it was like, kind of weird. By did Nashville. The next day we went to we drove around a little bit. Shelby got to go to one of her favorite stores, called Love shack fancy, very famous bougie establishment Joey loves it. I got to go to Vanderbilt University in the middle of Nashville, bookstore got to walk around campus. I did. And I got an shirt as well. So I was I was vibe. I was doing good. So then, from Nashville, we went to Atlanta, which on the way to Atlanta, which was another like six hours we got stuck at a buches which for those of you listeners who don't know what a buches is, you're in for a whirlwind treat of a smorgasbord of smells and sounds it's a it's a gas station. Grocery Store is essentially what it is but it has it like we went to a small one and it was just full of people and they just had fresh food being cooked meat being sliced ice cream being made in it like just throngs of people in the middle of nowhere Tennessee

Collin  1:13:40

at this just giant buggies

Aaron  1:13:43

so that was a trip in itself and then we got to Atlanta

Collin  1:13:46

Atlanta is nice and nice people

Aaron  1:13:53

but no one knows how to drive in the traffic was awful. I was waiting for the but I was waiting for the but it was it rained on us majority of the time. We got in late which we went to another Airbnb No prob with Airbnb however it was in someone's house, which typically not like no big deal, but when the House has little children then it becomes a big deal. And so we

Collin  1:14:21

we

Aaron  1:14:23

got to go to this restaurants established or establishments hybrid thing where it was like an old train station that's been converted into this multi storey like mall thing and the jig.

Collin  1:14:38

It was cool. And then what were what woken up by screaming children vanished out

Aaron  1:14:51

into Atlanta. And so then we tour the town went to Georgia Tech University, which again pretty but the rest of the world And it was man tried to go to a Braves game. But it rained for like three hours. And it was like nine o'clock at night and we're like, we're both tired. We just want to go back back home, so went to their baby. Next day, we woke up and went to Savannah, which is probably by my all time favorite

Collin  1:15:17

place ever was really low

Aaron  1:15:21

key. Not a lot of people. It was like 85 degrees, but it was like, comfortable. Like, I wasn't sweating. I wasn't hot. But we got to go to

Collin  1:15:33

the savannah bananas Stadium, which is a minor league ish team.

Aaron  1:15:41

That's really famous on YouTube and Tiktok and stuff. Got to see that they didn't play a game, but then we just parked and just walked all over Savannah. Are they to dancing

Collin  1:15:49

ones? Sorry? Are they dance to like? Yes,

Brandon  1:15:52

I was gonna say, Okay, you should you should tell people why they're favorites. Because it's really weird if

Aaron  1:15:58

I didn't know how to explain it. But yes, it's a it's a form of baseball that years ago, the owners were like, Hey, we're losing money, we need to revamp this. And so they basically made it like a performance kind of deal where they still play baseball, but there's like, you know, dances and music and like halftime shows kind of thing. And so it's really, it's an extreme baseball game. But the tickets are astronomical. And it's always sold out, like everywhere they go. So it was just really cool to go to the little store, which I thought was gonna be much bigger, but it was like, like a tiny room and there's like a little fold

Collin  1:16:36

out table. And that's it. And I was like, Oh, this is not

Aaron  1:16:41

as big as I thought it'd be but whatever

Brandon  1:16:42

maybe the parts coming soon.

Aaron  1:16:44

It's the stadium is built. It is this like the old like city ballpark. So it's not like really renovated or has like, a lot of new amenities. But it's very, like, it's very old. But it did like the aesthetic is really cool just like a cool old ballpark.

Collin  1:17:03

And so

Aaron  1:17:05

we did that we and we walked around Savanna downtown, they had all these parks all of these live oak trees with a Spanish moss hanging from them and got to see all these monuments and all this stuff. And it was it was gorgeous. Left savanna and went outside to this place called a Wormsloe which is an old like plantation. But it was a plantation from like the 1700s in like colonial era and there's still people who live in this house which is gigantic, but you drive down this road and there's just it's covered you have live oak and Spanish moss and then you park and then you just walk around and it's like you get to see where the old homestead was and have a colonial house where they you know,

Collin  1:17:55

blacksmith

Aaron  1:17:57

camp and all this stuff there and then there's just like salt marshes like all around us like because we are like

Collin  1:18:02

that close to the ocean. Next day oh that night was that night? No Yeah, no So

Aaron  1:18:11

okay, so went to bed at another Airbnb in a place called thunder bolt which is outside of Savannah went out and got seafood walked the beach or walked a little pier thing gorgeous. The next day, winter this beach called Tybee Island. Again, really lucky cuz I'm sitting thinking like major beach 1000s of people know there's like 20 people. And just like, chillin out. Gorgeous scene, not busy at all wasn't super hot. I didn't get sunburned at the beach, which is a miracle. I think I got more sun here in Oklahoma, they did in

Collin  1:18:48

Georgia. But did that,

Aaron  1:18:53

you know, got to do two or three things go to a lighthouse. I came back, walked around Savannah more and just got to see like all the Confederate monuments and all like the Civil War and like all the revolutionary like colonial houses that were still there. And it was just a whirlwind of history because it's it has so much of it, because it has colonial history, revolutionary history, Civil War history, modern history and just it's incredible. That night, got to go to a

Collin  1:19:25

concert tour. Which Hey,

Aaron  1:19:30

yeah, so it there was there's two different kinds one where you could get out and walk at night at nine o'clock at night and it was like raining so like the aesthetic was like really cool. Or you can go on a tour bus where they like roll the windows up or they they fold the windows up and it's like an open canopy kind of bus and then they just drive around. Which we probably should have went on the walking one because ours had like a crying

Collin  1:19:52

baby. Nine o'clock at night and a baby crying

Aaron  1:20:01

That kind of round it. And then of course, there's like the lady that's like, oh, you know, I, my great aunt Ethel, you know, told me a story one time and like the the poor college kid just like didn't care. She's like,

Collin  1:20:12

Oh, yeah, that's cool. See, mine was better.

Brandon  1:20:19

I was way cooler.

Collin  1:20:22

You know, quote unquote,

Aaron  1:20:26

Spirit, come aboard. And I was like an actor, like telling you about a story that they did. And they didn't leave. But basically, I can summer up, you know, when in doubt, Confederate ghost boy, boom, your story's golden. Because that was pretty much the crux of most of those. Although Walt Disney stayed in one of the mansions in Savannah, and that's where he got the inspiration for the Haunted Mansion, the ride and all that stuff, because the front of it is the exact same if you ever see the old haunted mansion,

Collin  1:20:57

that and so

Aaron  1:21:01

Oh, I did forget Sorry, I'm trying to speed rush this year, on the way from Nashville to Atlanta, we stopped in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and got to see the Civil War battlefield of Lookout Mountain. And this is I'm not like talking about like a hill. It's like a mountain that the Confederates were on top of and they got to see literally the entire valley. And the Union forces under grant like just like marched up a mountain and target and you drive up this like, winding, very narrow road, you park on this little tiny town called Summersville, which is on top of it, and then you just walk in, they have like the or the cannons placement was all this stuff. And you can literally see the Tennessee River, the entire city, and like all the other battlefields around it, and it was just gorgeous.

Collin  1:21:53

So back to

Aaron  1:21:55

Savannah, did haunted tours, went to bed exhausted, woke up, drove to Charleston, which is only like did you do?

Collin  1:22:03

Did you do another haunted? You do multiple haunted tours?

Aaron  1:22:07

No, no, no, we only did that one. I had to jump back and forth. I'm sorry. Okay, we tracking the haunted tour, it was like two hours long. And we actually got to get out and walk through a mansion. And you know, got to be told, you know, go story after ghost story. So it wasn't like anything spooky was more like historical, but the other ones like there's people like dressed up walking around and being very, you know, creative and storytelling. And so that was cool. It was kind of ruined due to the entire family bringing children which I know people with kids but like when it's like a baby. And it's 930 at night in Savannah, Georgia, and it's raining.

Collin  1:22:53

Just stay home. You ruined my tour.

Aaron  1:22:57

So the next morning, got up, drove to Charleston, which I liked Charleston, although it was way busier than Savannah. But we mostly did like kind of just, you know, flat, lazy shopping where we just kind of walked from store to store walked the historical district got to see the slaveholding quarters. I Brandon's in the picture of the cobblestone. We also got to walk in the cop deck the original cobblestone areas of the town. Got to see the haba and we're all there. You know, they had it. They had like a aircraft carrier just chilling in the middle of the water. Just no big deal. I guess the Battery Park and we walked like a full like six miles that day. And I had like 80,000 steps, just walking Charleston.

Collin  1:23:50

And like I was I was so tired.

Aaron  1:23:53

Then something ridiculous like that. But we're all over the place. And so did Charleston, which I liked Charleston but Shelby and I both agreed that Savannah was just more enjoyable because it wasn't as busy. Then what then we went to our Airbnb, which was all the way down. It was like 40 some odd minutes south in a place called Hollywood, South Carolina, which was kind of in the boonies esque but gorgeous house that our own little you know, abode, if you will. And they were talking to the owner and she's like, you know, hey, we want to go to the beach, but we don't really want to drive all the way down to Hilton Head, which is like the really popular beach and besides Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, which is like, oh, we have a desk Edisto Island, which is like 20 minutes that way and we're like,

Collin  1:24:43

leave. That's no explore that.

Aaron  1:24:46

Next day, we drove literally 20 minutes to Edisto Beach at or Edisto Island, little tiny community, which I was like looking at the history and it was literally, you know, slave play. annotations that the all of the plantation owners just left. And all of the slaves were still there. And they're I guess we'll start our own community. And then the civil war broke out. And then like Edisto Island was apparently abandoned. And then it was like re established as a place earlier on, but it was just like, you know, homes and then just everyone vanished. It was like, Oh, this is weird. But it's a nice little, you know, Island Island community. The beach was a little bit busier than we would have liked. You know, we walked a lot. They had little beach, restaurants and shopping places that we got to see. And then we drove back up to close to Charleston to go see the angel oak, or the Angel Tree, whatever it's called, which is like a 400 year old live oak tree that's been preserved. And it is, like, I was expecting like, oh, a tree or whatever. But other thing is massive. And like the art, the branches are just like, twisting over and just reaching out. And they're like, Yeah, dude, it's like 400, you know, or 400 yards of just like branches just extending like from the roots and like the branches and everything. So we got to see that. And then I think we just drove back to our little, little Airbnb. I did not want to drive to Atlanta, I said, I was a hard pass to that. But no matter where we're going to go, it was going to be like an eight hour drive. So we drove north to North Carolina. completely bypassing Georgia at this point, and then from Columbus or Columbia, whatever it is, when poked up through North Carolina, that we jetted over and went straight back to Nashville where we stayed in the hotel. But thankfully, this hotel actually had like a washer and dryer. So we actually got the laundry. So which was really nice. And then we drove the eight hours back to Tulsa, after we kind of toured around Nashville, again, kind of go into different restaurants and coffee places. That was the main place if we didn't know what to do, we're going to find a coffee shop in some way shape or form. And when we got back and then it's been Go, go go ever since.

Brandon  1:27:22

That's what we did in Boston too, but it's just Dunkin only I just saw there was nice though. Good, good side

Collin  1:27:31

lamb.

Brandon  1:27:35

Or there was Yeah, I was definitely severely down on my coffee intake last week, like it was pretty rough, you know, but should just have a lot of random places like that's your

Aaron  1:27:45

tip that typically in the morning, if it was close by we would try to go to like the Starbucks or Dunkin something that we're accustomed to because breakfast was very important. And then by like midday in the afternoon, it's like let's find a local coffee place. And we always found one somewhere. But seafood. There's one place where they just kept bringing us hush puppies. And boy howdy, I love hush puppies, but I was I didn't even get to eat my meal. Like I had that many hush puppies. Oh yeah that's too many. These are any final finally finally it was like chips and salsa. You just keep eating chips. No, they're not.

Brandon  1:28:28

They are the south Colin that's how it works. These are the chips.

Aaron  1:28:33

Georgia Carolina. There was finally a lady in South Carolina. That's like you need more sweetie sugar. I'm like Oh, I'm in the south finally. And so that completed the full experience because I don't know if I snapchatted you Colin but there was somebody I texted like, I've been in the South for like a week and no one's called me sugar and I'm very upset. And there was this little little little sassy old lady in Hollywood South Africa. Alana she's like anymore sweetie sugar. I'm like, Oh, by the prophecy is true. So yeah, I definitely came back with more clothes than I left with. I don't know how that happened. I got to Vanderbilt hat didn't right there. Boom. I got to Atlanta Braves hat right there. Boom. I got an Edisto t shirt. I got to Vanderbilt t shirt.

Collin  1:29:31

You got like another t shirt here and I think you know exactly how that happened.

Aaron  1:29:37

I did get I did get a sweet history of Savannah book because they it was a really cool bookstore in Savannah, Georgia and had like, when they say a lot of cats. I only saw like three cats walking around. But there was cats in this bookstore. And it was a very it was built in like an old like Victorian house. And it like it just there was just books everywhere. Where and I got a little Savannah history book that I've been reading and catching up on so it was it was good time I drove the entire time she'll be was a passenger Princess which is a new new phrase of someone who controls music and thermostat apparently.

Collin  1:30:19

What was what was the music for your trip? Ah, so it

Brandon  1:30:23

did it change by state like according no like

Aaron  1:30:28

So when in doubt, it was kind of like older music. No, but, but we found the it was called Road Trip hits that played like a lot of like newer music. And there was another road tripping so we found a plant like a lot of Taylor Swift for some reason.

Brandon  1:30:47

I'm gonna say is Shelby a Swifty? It was just

Aaron  1:30:53

she would fall asleep and like it would replay like Taylor Swift song Taylor Swift song killer so sorry. I was just struggling by the time I got past Arkansas, I'm like, I don't care anymore.

Collin  1:31:04

I just something keeping you awake. And so

Aaron  1:31:07

you know, listen to music. I think we tried to listen to like there was a song and I was like, I think it was like in South Carolina or Georgia. I'm like, I feel like I want to listen to some banjo music. And Shelby's like absolutely not like

Brandon  1:31:24

it's important to curate the playlist right because did I listen to the Dropkick Murphys while driving through downtown Boston? Oh, yeah. Bad I did. And I gave Susan my other earphones like here. Just take this for a minute. And we were rocking out to some to some Dropkick Murphys while we're going through Boston. That's important, right? Before we go, because I don't have colleagues did you have to go here and second? Very important, very important. Mentioning driving, right. Our tour was like through like this whole, like tour Association group thing. So we had a driver

Collin  1:31:58

who was sick, right? It was great.

Brandon  1:32:00

But I have to shout her out because I have never seen anybody drive a bus like this. This was without doubt, the most highly skilled motorcoach last bus driver I've ever seen in my life. So shout out to Tanya. Right.

Aaron  1:32:16

Tanya here

Brandon  1:32:19

is a beast, right? She parallel parked a bus on Fifth Avenue in New York. He just like whipped it in there. And like no stopping No, nothing. Just like, jump off and go to Central Park. Right? Yeah, it is amazing. So now, right? She was. She was like, I don't usually talk to the tour people. You guys are great. We like hung out. We hug goodbye we love Tanya around here. So shout out to Tanya. Him too, I guess. Yeah, Tim. He was the official director guy, whatever. But shout out to Tanya for being the best bus driver on the East Coast over there. Right.

Collin  1:33:02

I was under a very under appreciated position is a tour bus driver the amount of the day up with you're trying

Brandon  1:33:10

to drive a bus through like

Collin  1:33:13

Manhattan or this is

Aaron  1:33:16

possible that normally drive that

Brandon  1:33:18

right yeah, like normal cars cannot make navigate this like thing. But this woman is a master of her craft. So just want to make sure that we shout it out Tanya.

Collin  1:33:29

Before we leave today. She is the best so there we go. Boom. I love that.

Brandon  1:33:39

I would not be doing my due diligence if we did not shut out time

Collin  1:33:43

on Yeah, yes. They are very important. Very important. But I am glad you all had great trips and you made it back home safely to your race respected parts of the Midwest and are settled back in and sounds like both of those were very successful. endeavors.

Brandon  1:34:14

It's true. But now where am I going to get my lobster macaroni this is a problem. So

Collin  1:34:25

so disappointed at restaurants and they don't just bring them on limited amounts of hush puppies. Brandon aggressively throwing down his menu when he's like Darko walks through Mecca where's my chatter? Chatter confused everybody. We could never go out to eat again. I'm sorry, sorry, people.

Brandon  1:34:46

The best part of the day, as you know being Funkhouser. The best part of vacation is eating all kinds of random things. It's like

Collin  1:34:52

it's it's indeed it's waking up in the morning and as you're eating breakfast, trying to decide what you're going to wear what So the meals are gonna be like,

Brandon  1:35:01

I don't know. Let's, let's owl. You don't know till you get there like I didn't know I wanted lamb shawarma until I saw the sign. It was like going over there

Collin  1:35:22

Yeah, well, we will. We will tackle chapters two and three next time for The Hobbit and continue on with the summer reading series. And as we as we rejoice and travel in in good books. So speaking of journey, changing Yes, yes. Started next week. Yeah, yeah. Very good. Good. Love you guys. Bye