Hallo(ween)…It’s Me
(I’m on Vandy’s campus dreaming about catching up on sleep…sorry, okay, Adele did it better.)
After a solid three days of Halloweekend celebration (because Halloween is a state of mind, not a mere day on a temporal calendar), I decided to continue shirking the unfolded hamper of laundry at the foot of my bed by going with a group of my sorority sisters to a [pumpkin patch.] We loaded up a few cars on Sunday morning and drove the forty-five minutes to Honeysuckle Hill Farm, a popular spot for family outings and pumpkin-spice fueled photoshoots as we reveled in the very Insta-worthy backdrops of corn mazes, sunflowers, and the beautiful rolling hills of Middle Tennessee.
Upon arrival, a group of girls in my pledge class decided collectively that we should go into the building labeled, simply, “Fun House.” Let me tell you: more terrifying than fun. Sure, we’re all Vandy-educated. We’re supposed to be able to use our minds to overcome our fears and obstacles. But when faced with a hallway full of creepy clown pictures with light-up eyes, or with a walkway that appeared to spin as soon as you stepped on it, we were reduced to rubble. (My friend even fell down on the illusory spinny walkway, but I won’t name any names.)
In order to get out of this Barn of Terrors, we had to pass through these weird, white inflatable walls that seemed to squeeze in on us on all sides as we pushed and shoved and yelped our way through them. So, Horrible Building of Optical Illusions that Make You Feel Sick: 0/10, would not recommend to a friend. Maybe I would’ve found it fun as a child, but I find that hard to believe. This was not child’s play. This was the Real Deal.
Now, I’m no expert, but I think that by coming on the first day of November…we kinda missed all the big pumpkins. The pumpkin patch turned out to be more of a “field where people had placed lots of pumpkins ranging from head-size to orange-size.” I mean, the baby ones were adorable, but these little guys weren’t winning any contests. That didn’t stop us from squealing over them, nor did it stop my ambitious recreation of a Magritte classic.
I’ll give the pumpkin patch section of the farm a solid 8/10, which I think is pretty generous considering it wasn’t actually a pumpkin patch in the traditional, pumpkins-are-grown-here sense of the word. We gathered ourselves for one group picture, getting some poor corn-maze straggler to wait for this unruly gaggle of girls to get ourselves together and actually figure out how to pose for a simple photo.
We finished our brief outing in a little food station, burning our tongues on hot cider and fresh cinnamon-sugar donuts. They even had all kinds of fudge, with flavors like Peanut Butter, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Mint, and other flavors that I would personally call a little aggressive to still be labeled “fudge,” but I’m hardly an expert. Food station: solid 9/10. It only lacks that perfect score because there were tons of bees who were super interested in our cider. I was not at all about that life.
Loading up once more, slightly warmer from the cider and muddier from sitting on hay bales, we navigated our cars down country back roads to campus, passing picturesque barns and even a few horses. We were back in the city before three o’clock, surrounded once more by buildings instead of corn stalks. Even though it was just a quick day trip, it was exactly what I needed to come up for air outside of the Vandy bubble and remind myself to stop every once in a while and smell the sunflowers (but to definitely check and make sure there are no bees in the flowers first).
