Fall SPOTs!
You’ve heard about a variety of Fall Break options from my fellow bloggers, and I’m here to share yet another. If you’ve been following my blogging, you’ll remember that on Spring Break last year, I went on a mission trip called Spring SPOTs. Well, the Vanderbilt BCM has a Fall break equivalent of that trip (hence the title of this post) and this break we went to Knoxville, TN!
Being from Florida, I generally look for options other than going home for Fall Break, since it’s too far to drive and flights are quite expensive for just four days. I was super excited to find out the BCM’s trip would be to Knoxville, a place I had never been to and the hometown of fellow blogger Eileen!
While in Knoxville, we did a variety of service projects– helping out with the Western Heights Baptist Center’s food bank and afterschool care program, painting staircases at a halfway home for women, and even doing demolition on some old theatre seats at Angelic Ministries. The physical work was a nice break from all the mental work I find myself doing here at Vandy.
On Saturday afternoon, we had some free time, so some friends and I drove to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and hiked up to Clingman’s Dome! The view was amazing and the weather was perfect. We took lots of pictures (including some boy-band style ones on the rocks…see below) and enjoyed the fresh air and beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, on the way back we encountered some terrible traffic–but 3 hours in the car together was certainly a bonding experience! After a long drive, we eventually met up with the rest of the group for dinner in Gatlinburg, which was a very fun town to experience.
It was lovely to take a break from Vandy for a few days and get to see another part of Tennessee, and I’m already looking forward to finding out where Spring SPOTs will be next semester!
