Nashville/Virginny

Welcome to another exciting installment of “THE TRANSCREDIBLE EXPLOITS OF TEAM KEPOW!” This week’s episode: “Enter the Taco Bagel!”

After a fun-filled evening in East Nashville involving an amazing Vegan Restaurant and drinks/trivia/full-bar Bohemian Rhapsody sing-a-long at a local drinkery our heroes awoke (both of us now fully sick with a cold courtesy of Dylbo) to begin the venture to Virginia. Plowing through the rain undeterred bags were crammed, the Honda Accordion was likewise crammed and off we went with Justin (me) driving shirtless through Tennessee so as to not rouse suspicions that we were not local.

Meanwhile the hairier 2/3 of the mythical Rybex (Ryan/Rebekah/Rockie) was en route to dropping off the fairer 1/3 in an entirely non-mythical place known only as Yogaville, VA with plans to find us after.

Our two parties were set to meet up in Grayson Highland State Park in preparation to scale Virginia’s highest mountain the dread Mount Rogers. Ry Bagel and Rocko the Taco Pig arrived just in time to dive into the tent narrowly avoiding the rains. The rest of the evening was a feast of Whiskey, glump, and falafel. And so our dynamic duo had become a fearsome foursome and we set out to put most, if not all, of Virginia underfoot. The weather remained decidedly wet, and despite the trail leading to the top of Mt Rogers boasting of some of the best vistas in the state, we were neither able to see more than a few dozen yards in front of us, nor use any sort of camera that was not waterproof for fear of a fatal dampening. Before the rains and hike began in earnest we were treated to some of Virginia’s famed wild ponies. Myk managed to sneak her phone/camera out of its plastic bag long enough to take a couple quick photos. As you can see in our pictures one of them tried to pick my pocket. Another was convinced that the plastic bag that Myk had in her hand contained some sort of snack and for a minute or two refused to allow her passage along the trail until we removed the temptation of the bag. Make no mistake that the smile on her face is laced with a fear that she was about to fall victim to the most adorable mauling of all time.

We decided to make camp just before the final ½ mile spur trail that would lead to the summit. It had clearly been raining for several days up in these misty mountains so the process of starting a fire took all three of the humans (thanks for nothing, Taco Pig) and several hours. As the rain rolled back in after we had finished our dinner we again grouped into the larger of the two tents to play Rummikub and snack upon whiskey, falafel, and tabbouleh.

While the original plan had been to spend the second day doing a quick hike to the summit of Mt Rogers followed by some other exploratory hikes around the area, we instead found ourselves yet again under a persistently rainy sky. We managed to find a window in which to steal away and get to the top of the mountain. Mt. Rogers is an oddball when it comes to mountains. Normally there are forests leading up the mountain but the summit is usually bald. Rogers has fairly clear rocky sides and a nice dense spruce forest at the top. The forest gave us some cover from the wet and we were able to get a few pictures. Once we returned to camp we started to assemble the line style process necessary to turn water-saturated wood into a fire. Just as we were about to light the fire, in came the rains, thus returning us to the tent for more snacking, gaming, and making Rocko wear funny things on her head to amuse us.

Though we were somewhat relegated to tent sitting, a good time was has by all despite some minor stir-crazery involving songs using the phrase buttsack instead of loveshack and reducing most conversation to timely uses of the word Hodor. Our trek home was the rainiest day by far and many of the trails we took down the mountain were less like trails and more like not-so-shallow creeks. While the fearsome foursome had managed the elements admirably up to this point, the descent from Mt. Rogers was a bit more trying and what had been a 4 mile hike up a mountain somehow turned into a 6-8 mile disjointed jaunt down. After a few wrong turns, soaked through clothes and boots, sore muscles, and blistery feet we were FINALLY able to find our way to the bottom, and we snuck back into the less primitive campsite from the first night to treat ourselves to well-deserved hot showers.

Our legs worn down tired but our spirits raised high we prepared our little caravan and began heading south for the wonders of North Carolina.

Will Justin stay awake for the entire drive? Can Myk find a cheeseburger in time? Will Ryan be able to find his lady love in the wilds of Raleigh? Will Rockie ever fucking wake up?

These answers and more next time in, “THE TRANSCREDIBLE EXPLOITS OF TEAM KEPOW!” Next episode: Rally in Raleigh?

"What a weird dang ol tree Bird." "Hodor."

At this point Justin still thinks this is how the whole hike will look.

Kentucky and Tennessee

So currently, J and I are sitting in a hotel in East Nashville watching a movie about birdwatching featuring Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Jack Black, and a whole slew of other notables, none of whom seem to be helping this poor movie. We just flipped it on so I can't be sure, but it is possible we're being Big Bounced.

Anyway, that's really neither here nor there. The past few days have been great! We drove through beautiful Kentucky, including Muhlenberg County complete with John Prine Ave.


(On a side note, we've been trying to play the songs of the places as we visit, so if you have any recommendations please do share. Today we did Tennessee Jed, Rocky Top, East Nashville Skyline, and Tennessee Pusher. Now back to Kentucky.)

We've been in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. We took the cave tour, which was pretty freaking sweet. Our tour group was only six people instead of the usual hundred or something, so we got special attention from our weird, old, nerdy guide, Steve including a sneak peek at parts of the cave that are normally untourable. Mammoth Cave is crazy. As the longest cave system in the world, it has about 400 mapped miles of tunnelage and our guide told us they expect there to be as many as 1000 total miles down there. At our deepest we were 320ish feet (Justin describes this as a football field's worth) underground at the level of the water table where a huge river has cut through the limestone. The cave has both gigantic, cavernous hallways and small, crouch-y passages. Tons of adorable little bats hanging around. Signatures and initials dating back to tours from 1811! A cool, 55ºF all year round down there. Shoof. It was awesome.

The second part of the national park is across the Green River (where paradise lay) where you can backpack through the forest. We took one look at the crowded, expensive car campgrounds and headed that way. Loaded the little Honda Accordion onto the ferry and then hiked off away from the throngs. We camped in a remote little site, by an adorable little stream, in our sweet little tent. My mom (god bless her) insisted on stuffing our car to the gills with about a year's supply of food and drinks, but let me tell you we ate like kings in the woods last night. Drank beer and champagne by the fire and ate fettuccine alfredo noodle packets with crab added! Plus, of course, snacks on snacks. It was beautiful, serene, and filling. AND I accidentally set up our tiny tent on a verrrry slight hill and that combined with our slippery sleeping bags meant that while I was sleeping, I kept sliding over on top of Justin and smashing him against the mesh. Heehee. I slept great.

Back to today. We got to Nashville, checked into this super fancy Knights Inn, and had a beer at this cool little bar called 3 Crows. I think Todd Snider drinks there, but sadly no sightings (heh. birdwatching phrase). We are going out tonight to try and see the sights and eat good food without spending too much money. Tomorrow we'll trek out to try and find Ryan somewhere in Tennessee or Virginia and hike around for a few days with him and Rockie before meeting up with Rebekah in Raleigh for a bit. Katia, look out! We're coming for you, Hawk, and little Lio after that - we'll be in touch soon, lady!

East Nashville, put a bird on it

Oh yea before we forget, here is a peek at our map (though only through southernish California).

Carbondale

Halloo Halloo!

A brief update for the folks. We are in Carbondale and we are both currently finally fully phonally functional. We are enjoying the family time and managed to squeeze in an awesome afternoon of hiking with good 'ole Brooks. Dylbo Daggins has returned from his first year of college triumphant, skinnied, and pale and in less than an hour we are expecting the beefier, but no less pale, Chicago-Based Kelly product to arrive by train.

Myk and I were reflecting as we drove from the Ozarks to Carbondale on the quite beautiful highway 8 (Thanks for the directions Tezak) that Missouri is a magnificent looking state, at least the Central/South Central portions through which we traveled. As we drove we found ourselves saying, "Damn Missouri, work it girl," (OK maybe I was saying that more than Myk but she was totally thinking it, I could tell). Brooks spent a couple of days hanging out with us at the Casa De Kelly and on Thursday he, Myk, and I went to the Garden of the Gods (see pictures below) for some hiking and and delicious lunch atop a bluff. It was a nice little 4 mile hike round trip and a pretty good warm-up for what is hopefully to come as we get this extended vagration underway in earnest.

Again this was meant to be just a brief check-in so I won't gas on and on. We added a function to the blog where you can enter your email to get updates whenever we add posts, the space to enter your email address should be at the very bottom of the page. We are trying to do the Team KePow Instagram thing as often as possible as well, so feel free to check on that from time to time. We hope all is well and those of you who are missing us are doing so terribly. We, on the other hand, are having a ball.

Wuvaluvs

 

EDIT: Bonus story from last night. Danny has been trying to read the Great Gatsby in a hurry the last few days because he had plans to see the new film last night. In the final hour before he was supposed to leave for the movie he had 30 pages to go but simultaneously his beloved Bulls were playing the Heat in game 3 of the playoffs. This prompted the following statement from Kelly: "Danny the Great Gatsby is the great American fucking novel, you can't read it while watching fucking basketball you idiot!"

Ozarks!

We spent the past two days hanging out at the Lake with the Powell side of the family and it has been great despite the less than ideal weather. We drove down from Springfield through the rain and so far the highest temperature we’ve seen is 65º. So we haven’t gone out onto the water but has that slowed us down? Pfft.

For those of you who may have missed out, May 4th was the Kentucky Derby and I (Justin) won the family betting pool (Go Orb!). And later that night the groundwork was laid for mega-hangover Sunday. This included various toasts: ranging from Jameson to Champagne to (much later in the evening as our supplies dwindled) Boone’s Farm; scaring raccoons; and with the aid of George the cat and something known as the “Chord Buddy” family sing-a-long time (special thanks to you Tom Dooley).

​

​We unfortunately hit our first traveling snag during this stop, when my phone experienced a Chernobyl-esque meltdown. Despite efforts to cool it by leaning it against a cold beer bottle the battery could not be saved. Thus, setting the stage for the first act of mega hangover Sunday which found our hero (again me, Justin) valiantly talking on the phone with first a robot and then a robot style person for a bit over an hour. The result is that I am without phone until probably Wednesday, so if anyone needs to get in touch with us you’ll have to call Myk.

​After our recovery from mega-hangover Sunday we had a lovely dinner with the grandparents Powell and got to spend some nice quiet quality time. After dinner and a pretty tough farewell we headed down to Hugo, MO to stay with Adam and Sarah T. With mega-hangover Sunday behind us at this point we were pleasantly and cautiously surprised to find that Sarah had found that she had returned from Ryan and Rebekah’s wedding with a few jars of Michael Miller’s booze infusions. We sampled a few and despite a fairly successful blueberry vodka the strawberry rum gave us pause when we held it up to the light and found some extra-curricular life forms floating about. Either way it was a nostalgic and disgusting toast to our former co-habitants.

​Anywho, we will check in again in a few days hopefully. We are gonna head out to do some farming and then head to Carbondale. Those of you in said areas prepare yourselves for Team KePow!

Instagram

We're trying out Instagram. I'm not sure how it works, but we are teamkepow on there!

Getting out of Champaign

Well. Family. Friends. We finally did it. Yesterday afternoon, after about two weeks of goodbye parties, toasts, bbq's, and bars (I think our friends were glad to see us get the hell out of town so their livers could recover and their bosses would stop yelling at them for coming to work hungover) Justin and I headed out of Chambana to start our adventurings. The last three days were pretty sap-tacular. J and I have lived in that little silly Champaign house for so long now! And even though it was pretty ridiculous for a bunch of otherwise fairly normal adults to still be living commune style at thirty years old, it was awfully sad to leave Ryan and Rebekah. Awfully sad to leave all those wiener friends of ours - you all know who you are.

Anyway, we made it to Springfield and have been getting goofy with Marilyn, Jamie, Kyle, and the little niece and nephew. Here are some shots of Justin being silly with Kaley and Kody at the park today.

Tomorrow we head to the Lake of the Ozarks!

Hopefully, we'll be good about updating this blog and we'll take turns writing. Some time this week we want to have our whole map/route posted with at least estimated dates included. That way all you out of town family and friends won't be SO surprised when we show up on your doorstep stinking, hungry, and with a bunch of dirty laundry...

Love, love, love you all.
myk and justin