February 3rd – February 10th

This Saturday, on February 9th, my mom, my sister, my baby niece and I all went to Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, marking my first travel destination for this 20% project. We left our house bright and early at 9 A.M and drove the short 19 minutes there, where we browsed the gift shop for a few minutes. Most importantly, we bought a map of the 315 acre land.

Our first trail we hiked was called the “River Trail”, which led us to a beautiful boardwalk overseeing the river. We actually had to leave my baby niece’s stroller behind because it was too rocky! But luckily, it was a pretty short walk from the visitors center.

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After hiking back to the gift shop to get directions for our next trail, we got back in the car and drove down the street to a different parking lot, which just so happened to be in front of Mead’s Quarry, a gorgeous area filled with history. This wasn’t our desired location for the day however, so we got some pictures and started our actual trail right next to it

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Right off the Imerys trail at Ross Marble Quarry, there is a beautiful man made structure called ‘The Keyhole”. It’s a door shaped entrance located at the bottom of a stone wall, used in the 1920’s for transporting materials between workers and allowing them to get to the other side of the quarry. This hike was also not too long, however for the first 10 minutes, my family and I were sure we were going the wrong way. We arrived however and got the most stunning pictures!

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This first outing as a family was definitely a success! (Despite missing two members). Afterwards, we went to Chick fil A for lunch and spent even more quality time together, rehashing our favorite moments or showing each other our favorite pictures we took. I’m so glad I was able to learn about the history of places so close to me and I can’t wait for the next adventure!