The ROAMies Podcast
This travel and inspiration podcast will motivate you to explore the world, make a positive impact, and live your best life. Award-winning musical duo The ROAMies—Rory and Alexa—share insights, resources, and products to make travel and life on-the-go easier and more enjoyable.
Whether you're a frequent traveler, super busy and always on-the-go, or simply dreaming of more adventure, you'll find practical tips, helpful info, Rory’s infamous "dad jokes," and plenty of laughs. The ROAMies dive into where to travel, why to travel, and how to travel, sharing personal stories, favorite brands, and tools that support a busy, travel-filled lifestyle. Along the way, they welcome insightful guests who bring fresh perspectives and expert advice.
It’s the perfect mix of practical guidance, motivation, and inspiration—designed to spark your own adventures, fuel your creativity, and seamlessly integrate travel into your lifestyle.
The ROAMies Podcast
Intro to Season 7 and some road trip faves during our recent road trip to Nashville
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Season 7 is here! Go behind the scenes with Rory and Alexa as they share what life on the road is really like - the adventure, challenges, and stories that inspire their travels and yours.
Intro to Season 7, while we share about our recent road trip from Waco to Nashville. With a few travel tips tucked inside.
Check out our episode on the LIBBY APP - Episode 28.
Enjoy the benefits you find when stopping at Love's on your next road trip.
This is gonna be a busy season, so hold on to your hats, buckle up, and get ready! :)
Rory and Alexa
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Alexa and Rory
The ROAMies
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Introduction and Season 7 Kickoff
Speaker 1This transcript was automatically created and has not be read or edited by our team. Hi, I'm Alexa and I'm Rory, and together we are the ROAMies.
Speaker 2We are married To each other.
Speaker 1Right?, We are a touring musical duo.
Speaker 2And our music has taken us to all kinds of places all around the world and keeps us always on the go.
Speaker 1So we hope you enjoy our stories and adventures while running around working to keep all your plates spinning.
Speaker 2And we hope to facilitate your busy lifestyle and feed your inner travel bug. Hi, everyone, welcome to season seven. Seven we are starting our seventh year. What Of this episode, of this podcast, of this episode?
Speaker 1Wow, you better hang on. This is going to be a long one. Settle in, get a cup of coffee or something.
Speaker 2Seventh year of our podcast, so welcome to year number seven, season seven. We have a year of surprises for you lined up A year of surprises.
Speaker 1Kelp bun surprise. Oh, you're so French, Rory. Yeah, so not French in the way I said it.
Speaker 2That's okay, you're American, you can speak American. Alright, so we are on the road right now. We thought we would launch our season reading and a kickoff from our road trip. We had a concert in Nashville last night.
Speaker 1Nashville Tennessee.
Speaker 2Nashville, tennessee, because Nashville's not the only Nashville.
Speaker 1Oh, that's right. My big band played a sweetheart dance for Nashville Metro Parks. That was fun. Yes, thank.
Speaker 2Thank you, Kaylina and Nashville Metro Parks and with a partnership with Creative Parks Nashville, so that was very, very fun. It was a good time. There was a dance lesson before Rory's big band performed and folks there learned the Roomba. So that's what they learned last night.
Speaker 1They learned to dance like a vacuum cleaner, like a robot vacuum cleaner the Roomba I was supposed to play.
Speaker 2Rory was going to have me sing and play a couple songs with my uke and then we ended up not doing those. But we did do jambalaya and I played my ukulele with that and sang with you on some songs and stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah, they were dancing to upbeat stuff and not ballads, which is really the opposite of what crowds normally do. So we like nicks, nicks, as Elvis would say, on the ballads.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1Nicks, nicks. That's from Jailhouse Rock, by the way.
Speaker 2We had to cut the ballad the remaining ballads out of the set list and keep it upbeat For the most part, yeah. So anyway, I think people enjoyed it and it was their first year to do it and that was very fun their first year to do it and that was very fun.
Speaker 1And about three quarters of the way through, the emcee approached me dave, awesome guy. He approached me and said hey, when you finish this song, I need to make an announcement to the crowd because there's a tornado warning, what. So I said, well, what do I need to do? Do I need to? Like? I mean, you want me to stop now so you can tell me? Said no, go ahead and finish the song, and I thought, huh. And then I said so, when the song's done, do we need to like I'll go somewhere or something? He goes no, just go ahead and play music and I'll think a tornado warning. That's what you heard him say anyway, yeah, that's what I heard him say.
Speaker 1You thought you heard him say Well, that's what, kayleen, I heard him say too. So I think it was a tornado watch, and maybe he said warning, because warning means there's an imminent tornado. It's been cited, so anyway, it was interesting it.
Speaker 2It was only a watch, though, so that's why there was no pause for a while.
Speaker 1That's right, yeah crazy weather moving in. Last night and this morning, when we started leaving, there were snowflakes falling, and I'm seeing cars around me. Some of them have snow plastered at the front of their car, but the roads are in great shape right now.
Speaker 2Other than that we're like stopped.
Speaker 1We're dead stopped.
Speaker 2Yeah, we're in a parking lot traffic right now.
Speaker 1I 540 West parking.
Speaker 2Something is going on. But that's why we decided we would go ahead and record now, because we had planned to just share a little bit of our road trip with you and we thought, hey, it's going to be a lot less car noise while we're stuck here in the traffic.
Speaker 1But listen to this. You hear that that's the sound.
Speaker 2That's the truck next door. Yeah, yeah, that's the sound.
Speaker 1That's the truck next door. Yeah, yeah, that's the sound of American trade 18-wheelers flying down the highway. Well, he's parked next to us, but Right, right, yeah, definitely not flying. I-40, I-10,. You get a lot of big rigs.
Speaker 2True, it's always fun being back in Nashville because we lived there for a long time and just seeing the changes that have been made since we've moved and seeing friends.
Speaker 1Going back to our old stomping grounds. I went to Fido Coffee, which hadn't been to it maybe since we lived there or not long after. It was great going back. They've expanded some but they're still there in Hillsborough Village and then also seeing the Belcourt Theater theater. There they've redone the lobby and everything. I mean the facade looks completely different, more of a contemporary sort of looking facade with a bunch of glass, whereas before it was old school. You walk in and you might trip on the carpet because it's coming up and all that when we were living in Nashville, the Batman building was the downtown.
Speaker 1The E building. Yeah, man.
Speaker 2Kind of the symbol of.
Speaker 1Nashville, it was iconic yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, iconic, that's a good word. I know there are so many skyscrapers that have been built up so you can barely even see the Batman building now.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's like not even a thing. Now, it's crazy.
Speaker 2There's been, like, so many changes. Let's see, we left, we moved to LA, in la in 2010 yeah, so it's been quite a long time completely different city since we lived in nashville I mean even the titan stadium, which is like.
Speaker 1Another iconic thing is you're driving down 40 and now they're building huge buildings in front of it. They're going to be tall, I guess, look like maybe uh, apartments and stuff. You won't even be able to see the stadium as you drive by. That's crazy.
Speaker 2So it's a very different nashville than what we left, but so many cool things about it too and so many dear friends, and it's just like we wish we could see, like everybody we just I don't know how we can arrange that yeah, it's not really possible hey, come to our concert so we can see you, yeah, yeah, we don't want to be in a position, but come see us.
Speaker 1come to our concert so we can see you. Yeah, we don't want to be in a position, but come see us, come to us.
Speaker 2Basically like we were going to make this trip a longer. We were going to spend like a week on this trip. Yeah, about a week on this trip, because my parents live just three hours away from Nashville, so we were going to go see them and probably bring the cats maybe Rory didn't like that idea, maybe not and probably bring the cats, maybe rory didn't like that, but you know, like kind of settle into this area, at least for a little week. And then, yes, and then family member got covid and they're like don't come visit us.
Speaker 2We're like okay, okay. So, even though it's much milder, it's still very contagious, and when you sing, you don't want to know.
Speaker 1So what we did instead of being there a week, we drove over Friday. We did the last minute thing. Yep drove over Friday. It's a 12-hour drive or something like that, maybe a little more, depending on how long you take. And then we sang yesterday.
Speaker 2We sang on.
Speaker 1Saturday, and now it's Sunday. Got to bed last night, 30 in the morning. Well, this morning at three, 30 in the morning. We stay with our awesome friends, more like family. Reggie and lady love Smith and uh stay with them last night, so we after our gig.
Speaker 2people I know that would like meet us for dinner after. Yeah, it was awesome Stay up and like hang for hours.
Speaker 1I'm like, hey, it's 10 o'clock and they're like, oh, yeah, it's time for dinner, let's go meet somewhere, let's go. So we had dinner. It was awesome. They would do well in Spain, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Italy, right, where everybody eats at 10 o'clock at night. So we did that.
Speaker 1Then we went back to their house and Reggie's like, oh, we've got to go up to the studio, you've got to listen to something told me the day before or so that oh, there's this stuff I'd love to get y'all doing this crowd sort of background singing on it. And I was like, well, okay, so last night, at oh, it must've been midnight or a little after midnight when we went up to the studio later than midnight, and so we went up and sang on a couple of things and then we listened to some new stuff they're doing which is really awesome. It's all man, old Lionel Richie and songs that I grew up with, these wonderful. You listen to them and these emotions just come out because they are time stamped for your childhood, you know. Oh my gosh, yeah, I almost cried listening to Lady Love sing that one. Oh my gosh I saw the tears welling up yes, she was, she's so great.
Speaker 1And he, reggie, sounded fantastic on some of that stuff he was doing, just scratch vocals, only some, what no? Great. And he's reggie sounded fantastic on some of that stuff he was doing, just scratch vocals, what no? I'm saying, I like he's saying these are scratch vocals, it's not very good. And after we finished he was like, uh, you need to keep that. So, okay, maybe. Anyway, pretty, pretty, pretty awesome. We sang stuff. Then we went downstairs and he was playing the piano again.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're like we gotta go to bed. And he's like, yeah, oh, rory, just listen to this, he sits playing the piano again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're like we got to go to bed. And he's like, yeah, oh, rory, just listen to this. He sits at the piano and starts playing. So he wants to start singing again. I'm like man, my voice is so tight. I did a gig and now it's like it's just getting all tight and weird. Oh, me too, me too. And then they start singing, and okay, so then we sing some and I got to go to bed. Okay, yeah, yeah, oh, hey, listen to this, it's always that way. They're awesome, they're awesome. So at 3.30 in the morning I climbed into bed and then we got up and left. This morning, I don't know.
Speaker 2A good night's rest for a 10-hour drive. Actually, it's an 11-hour drive with no stops.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's not a 12-hour drive.
Speaker 2We started an 11-hour drive with no stops and now we have this half-hour. We are stopped, stopped, yes, and there's really no way to do side streets and Google didn't get us onto a side street before we use Google Maps.
Speaker 1No, we're in the middle of nowhere between Nashville and Jackson, tennessee, on I-40 West.
Speaker 2There's really not much there it would be really pretty, but because we're at the end of winter, we still have a lot of trees that are just um wintry barren, so it's just a winter look yes, but it was great to be in nashville really, was it's?
Speaker 1it's really great to get to go there and visit. I think it felt good because we went to some of the old places we hadn't been in so long places we used to go a lot I also.
Speaker 2I also I'm not going to reveal what it's going to be but. I got my flavor inspiration for my tea that I'm going to name my nashville tea oh my I got my flavor inspiration while I was there.
Speaker 1Does it have like boots in it somehow or something like old boot?
Speaker 2old boot leather it's going to be a while till I get that one, because it's that one's going to be a hard one to like, come up with a tea that tastes like that, but it's going to be good, but that'll be, you know, a couple years, a couple years down the road, depending on when you're listening if you're still listening, listen to this two years from now, and then she'll reveal it.
Speaker 2Yes, yes, speaking of tea, I am heading to an online webinar now that I'm going to be listening to, to learn more about herbs.
Speaker 1Isn't that redundant saying online webinar? Sure, Because the web is on the online.
Speaker 2It is on the online.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So, anyway, I'm off to a little webinar conference. That is starting now, but we will be back to close out this episode. We'll give you an update on how long this road trip actually took right now. Yeah, so see you in about 17 hours.
Speaker 1It's now 2259 in the evening.
Speaker 2Rory is always military time boy. Oh, it just turned to 23. Okay, so it's 11 pm.
Speaker 1Yep, and we stopped to get gas here at loves, got a nice discount using their app. So if you're traveling, that's a great tip 10 cents off using the loves app. It was the cheapest gas we've got the whole trip 255 a gallon, 255. And you know why? Because we stopped where all the way home. We took a little stop in Italy.
Speaker 2Yes, we're in.
Speaker 1Italy Yep, pretty cool. So in Italy the gas is only 255 gallons. Italy, texas, that is yes.
Speaker 2See, here in Texas, we got us an Italy Texas and a Paris Texas. All kind of things no promises, but you might be hearing about a little bit of that later this year.
Speaker 1No, no promises just only.
Speaker 2I will give a sneak peek, though, oh, one of the series we are currently working on. We are going to be sharing a fun city with you guys called Mineral Wells, texas.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah, that's fun, but I was hoping the sneak peek was something for me Anyway, so yes because you had so much fun. Right, that's what I mean and there's more. Yeah, that'll help keep me awake on the way home.
Speaker 2Yes, we have 45 minutes left until we get home. 45 minutes, we're so close. I really need a nap. We left this morning.
Speaker 1Rory has been driving the whole time. At about 10 am we left this morning and now it's well, we're up to 10 and it's 23,. So you can do the math.
Speaker 2Y'all, rory has been driving the entire time and and so he does. He gets an audio book and he is a machine and he can just go. So audio books have been what keep him awake and keep him going.
Speaker 1Yes, and we use our Libby app Young teen audio books or teen audio books, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Fantasy. So if y'all have not yet heard our episode about the Libby app, I will put that a link to that in the show notes, because it's really really great, A super great and helpful tip.
Speaker 1It's a library app while we're here at this loves again. We didn't want to have too much rory's opening um a little.
Speaker 2Yeah, that wasn't actually a bodily noise, right, but we're stopped at this. Loves, here there's a whole tesla charging area right next to their dog park, and that's another thing we appreciate about loves is they have the dog park. So when, when you're traveling with your pets, most loves have a little dog park for you to get out, and if you charge your Tesla loves, then the dog can pee on your tires.
Speaker 1So I think maybe that's why they put it there. Well, they actually separate it from each other, I know, but it's like if the dog you know dogs like to pee on hydrants and tires.
Speaker 2So let your dog for a walk by the Tesla.
Speaker 1Well, your dog's on a leash, let it walk by the Tesla chargers and peel some tires.
Speaker 2When there aren't dogs there and we have our cats with us, we let them walk around in the tires.
Speaker 1They sniff the dog.
Speaker 2I'm trying to move on from your weird conversation, okay. We're going to hit the road and get back to some. Yeah, we're so close to home and Rory doesn't get to finish his book tonight. We still have four hours left on the book. So yeah, you're not even close, mister. Oh man, you are just at the climax of this book.
Speaker 1I got to plan another long drive to finish the book. That's right.
Speaker 2So you'll have to catch us on our next adventure so you'll have to catch us on our next adventure.
Speaker 1I guess kelsey will have to deal with it until I can get back to him and save she and her heroine.
Speaker 2The heroine in the book she's a redhead. I'm just saying she's a redhead. All the good books have redhead heroine redheads are like heroin see, that's why you married one. Huh, yep, hey, that rhymes. You should write a song about that. I like heroin and redheads.
Speaker 1Okay, great, well, I'm going to go home now. Redheads being heroines, that's what I mean, Right? That's what you mean A heroin redhead.
Speaker 2Alright, y'all, we'll catch you next time. Looking forward to sharing season seven with you.
Speaker 1Bye-bye now.
Speaker 2We hope we've inspired you this episode, so join us next time. Please subscribe to rate and share our podcast with your friends or you know whomever? And please like and follow us on Instagram, youtube and Facebook.
Speaker 1We are also on X and on all social platforms. We are at TheRomies, that's T-H-E-R-O-A-M-I-E-S, and our main hub is our website.
Speaker 2At wwwtheromiescom, that's right, that's. T-h-e-r-o-a-m-i-e-scom. We'll be there until next time.
Speaker 1Yeah, thanks for listening Bye.