A Quick Trip to Tennessee

We have wanted to visit Tennessee in the fall for a few years. We've been in spring, summer, and winter, but never fall. This year, we decided to do a quick trip. We left on Friday, drove to Tallahassee, picked up Jack after his classes for the day and headed north. The detour to Jacksonville added almost 3 hours to the already long drive. We left the house at 8:45AM and arrived at our rental around 10pm. It was a long day of driving. Usually, it takes us around 10 hours, but it was worth it to have Jack with us.

Saturday, we started our day with a trip to a family farm (Kyker Farms). It was super fun. They had 3 different corn mazes and tons of activities around the farm. Including a "hamster wheel," swing, practice roping area, air pillow, slide, disc golf, horeshoes, etc. We spent around 2 hours there and had a great time. The largest corn maze contained a scavenger hunt and facts about the farm's history. The farm has been in the same family for over 200 years!

The sunflowers in front of the corn made for really pretty pictures.

Fun around the farm.

After the farm, we went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A, did a quick Target run and then went to our next activity--horseback riding. I didn't realize this when I booked, but it was at the same place we went to in May 2022. As soon as we arrived everyone (except maybe Luke) recognized it. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the ride. 

We grabbed dinner at Walmart, went back to the cabin, ate, went in the hot tub and relaxed. We also played in the game room, which had a really nice air hockey table, foosball, and a a pool table. It was a good day!

Sunday, we went to the Roaring Fork Motor Park Trail in Gatlinburg. We had a couple of hikes we were interested in doing. Unfortunately, there was no parking at either hike. We did get to do a short (around 1 mile) nature trail, and a few other stops along the 5.5 mile scenic loop. After that, we had a picnic lunch and planned to do a mountain coaster. However, the line was extremely long, so we decided to skip it. We went back to the cabin for an afternoon break and then headed to Dollywood for the evening. 

Dollywood has a Harvest Festival for fall and it was really well decorated. We walked around the park, enjoying all the lights and decorations and rode most of our favorite rides. We went back to Dollywood on Monday and got to ride everything, including Night Flight, the newest ride. Our cabin was only 20 minutes away, so we left mid-afternoon, went to the cabin to pack and get ready for our drive the next morning, and then went back to Dollywood to enjoy another night of lights. I think everyone said they prefer the Christmas decorations, although for me it is actually a close call, regardless, we were all happy we got to go. 

We left the cabin at 630 the next morning and had a relatively smooth drive. We dropped Jack off around 330, in plenty of time for him to make it to his 5 o'clock class,  and made it back to Orlando around 730. The only bad thing about the trip was Anna and I got terrible colds. I was actually convinced I had the flu or covid, but tested negative for both. My body couldn't regulate its temperature, my throat was incredibly sore, and I had constant headaches. So, for me, the drive home felt especially long. And, Thomas had to do it all by himself. He usually does most of the driving, but I generally try and give him at least one break. We could have had one, or more, of the teens drive, but didn't. 

For both the drive up and back, Thomas and I enjoyed listening to some audiobooks. One I picked out thinking the whole family might like it, called The Graveyard Book (seemed appropriate for Halloween). It was different, but slightly disappointing. The other was a dramatized version of Pride and Prejudice. Thomas liked it and said he is going to read the book now. As I'm sure I've mentioned, it is favorite and I reread it about once a year. We also listened to our custom playlist. We started the tradition in 2016 of creating a driving playlist for road trips. Everyone gets to choose 5 songs, we put it on shuffle and enjoy. Sometimes, we talk about what songs we are choosing and sometimes we are more secretive, and we try to guess who chose which song. It is a fun tradition that I can't believe we've been doing for a decade now! 

Anna and Jack are 19!

Jack came home to celebrate his birthday weekend. Thomas picked him up in Tallahassee. It’s about 8 hours roundtrip, but Thomas says he doesn’t mind because it gives him extra time with Jack. Their actual birthday was Saturday. Anna wanted everyone to be together, so we all went to some of Luke’s tournament. The first game was at 8 and it was about 45 minutes away. Luke’s report time was 645, so Thomas and Luke left the house at 6. The rest of us left the house around 9. We stopped at Starbuck’s so Anna could get her free birthday drink. Then, we headed to the baseball fields. This tournament was in Davenport and navigation had us go down I-92, which is an extreme tourist area. Traffic was light at that time of day and we enjoyed driving by the crazy gift shops, miniature golf places, and other tourist traps. Kara took some great action shots during the game, which the parents love. They had been asking if she would be back this season.

I can’t remember how Luke’s team did in the tournament, which probably means it was fine. That night, we had Anna’s chosen meal of grilled burgers, mac and cheese, fruit, and chips. Although it was raining so she had to settle for air fried burgers. We had Jack’s cake, which Anna made. He wanted something with pumpkin but left the details up to Anna. She made a pumpkin cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. It was really good. They opened their gifts and I think everyone was happy. The truest adage of parenthood is that the days are long but the years are short and I can’t believe that this is their last year of teenagerhood! I wish I could time travel and spend time with toddler Jack and Anna. I miss them at every age. But, I am thankful for the amazing humans they are today.

 

Kara submitted all her college applications, so now we wait. She applied to UF, FSU, UCF, USF, and FAU. All of those schools are ranked in the top 100 nationally for public universities and she should get into some, if not most, of them so we expect her to have some great options. When we made our pro/con list for moving to Florida, the plethora of good, affordable colleges was at the top of the list, so it is nice to see that coming into fruition.

 

Luke’s baseball team has split into two teams. Luke has been guest playing with the secondary team, so it seems like most weekends are now baseball weekends. Luke and Thomas don’t mind. I try to go to his Saturday games, but generally need at least one weekend day to clean, grocery shop and run other errands, so we are often a family divided.

 

School is going well for Anna. She thinks she wants to be a teacher, so is going to take an introductory class next semester and see how it goes. She and I went to Epcot on the 13th to see The Fray in concert. They put on a good show. The main singer (Joe King) was really engaging. At one point, he was running through the crowd, high fiving and taking pictures with people in the audience all while singing. As I said with Garth Brooks—it is really fun to see a performer having fun performing. After the show, we sampled a couple of things from the Food & Wine Festival and called it a night without riding any rides (it was crowded!). It was a beautiful night and we had a great time.

The girls and I did a final Friday night at HHN. We had a really fun visit. Anna used her free ticket from her annual pass, as her HHN pass was expired. So, that was definitely her last time this season. We did 7 of the houses, rode Men in Black, had dinner and butterbeer and left by 9 before most of the Friday night crowd even arrived. We felt very efficient.

I visited my dad on the 17th and then went to Winter Haven to have lunch with my sister for her belated birthday. She was also born on October 3rd; it is a great day in our family for birthdays! We had a nice lunch together and enjoyed catching up. It was also nice seeing my dad, he was in good spirits.

In work news, both Thomas and I won our protests! 

And, that's all the news for now.