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!