quarantine adventures (part 1)

One of my two best friends, Madison, and I took our self isolation time to explore the many places around our city that we had never been before, and it made quarantine 100% more bearable.

We were on spring break when Covid took ahold of the nation. Teachers had slightly prepped us for the idea that we might get an extended break. Instead, we never went back to school. We were told to social distance, quarantine in our houses, and go to public places as minimally as possible. But that sounded really boring and depressing. So, Madison and I took it upon ourselves to make the most of it.

Our first adventure was to try to dye my hair. I had never attempted it before, but I had plenty of time to reverse it before I went back to school if I hated it. I wasn't willing to bleach it first, so it didn't work out. BUT. Then, we spent 4 hours curling my hair around 72 bendy straws to give me a homemade temporary perm. I slept with the straws in overnight and here is the progression of what my hair looked like for the next few days.

Sidenote: we lived off of Cheez-It Grooves for a few months (feat. in 3rd pic)

Our second escapade was to bake around 120 cookies, put them in paper bags with little notes on them, and drop them in 41 of our favorite people's mailboxes. It was a spontaneous decision, but one everybody was quite grateful for. Enjoy this adorable picture of my little cousin when he received his bag.

The next day we hand washed our cars (something that had not been done to my car by hand or by machine since I had started driving it a year prior). During the wash, we had a terrifying encounter with a bee that resulted in much laughter and many tears.

Later, we camped in Madison's backyard and watched approximately four movies. The most memorable one had to be What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and if you could give us any insight as to what the plot of that movie is, we would love to hear it. It sure had us cackling though, along with all the ways we could think of to make fun of the characters in The Last Song. The next day, we watched the entirety of Tiger King in one sitting, accompanied by a few cat naps. This day also brought about the beginning of many, many self timers which became our primary source of photography.

Our quarantine also consisted of many group FaceTime calls with our best friend, Ella, who is wiser than us and truly did self isolate. We took Zoom dance classes via our studio, TCFA, while on group FaceTime, so we didn't have to miss out on dancing together during Madison's last year at the studio before she graduated and left us for Belmont.

Anyways, Madison and I made a trip out to Morristown to bring her mom some treats since she was having a bad day, and then decided to take a look around the area. This is where our local travels really took off. We drove around Carson Newman's campus (where Ella is attending), got lunch at Pal's, and walked up what felt like a thousand stairs to get to the top of Cherokee dam. We took backroads to get home and found a little waterfall and, oddly, a plastic bag filled with corn.

Over the next few months, we visited dozens of local locations we'd never considered checking out before. Some were East Tennessee staples, and some were obscure. We took fun pictures around Knoxville Botanical Gardens, had several picnics at Concord Park (where we realized a mutual goal of becoming members of the Concord Yacht club {pronounced "yack-t" by us}), saw the statues of the Clinton Twelve, drove through rich neighborhoods and took interest papers for the ones being sold, went on a scavenger hunt, rang the International Friendship Bell in Oak Ridge, went to an outdoor prom so our dresses didn't go to waste, and took two trips to the beach.

One trip that took at least three times longer than it should've was up to what Knoxvillians call "the bluffs". It's not a location you can get to using Google Maps; it requires worded instructions found online. Maybe the directions aren't clear, or maybe we're just stupid, but we looked all over the areas surrounding the bluffs to no avail. I mean, we couldn't even find where we were supposed to park. We called both of my brothers and my Dad who all tried to direct us, but we weren't even in the spot they thought we were when they tried. We eventually gave up and drove to a park so the day wouldn't be a total bust. Then, we got a call from one of my friends responding to a cry for help we posted on my Snapchat story. She gave us all the direction we needed in one four word sentence: "Find the water tower." Once we found the water tower, we found the gravel lot to park in directly across from it; then, the bluffs were just a 7-minute walk up a slight incline. The venture was worth this view.

Click here for part 2!

quarantine adventures photo album

P.S. The links in the text lead to picture proof!