This is our third Halloween in the trailer. Each year has been different leading up to and preparing for Halloween, but one thing every year has had in common is that we’ve hoped we’d find that perfect Fall celebration. Somewhere out there existed a perfect pumpkin patch or corn maze, but we had yet to find it.
Our first year in the trailer, we had a great Halloween trick-or-treating with Brent’s cousin’s family in their neighborhood in Littleton, Colorado. Their house was more fabulously decorated for Halloween than any house I’d ever seen—and it was amazing! Outside of the perfectly decorated house, though, we had trouble finding a pumpkin patch from Boulder to Denver worthy of writing home about.
Last year, we were back in California. We were house sitting for my parents and found ourselves on our home territory doing what we’d always done for Halloween—paying $50+ at a pop-up pumpkin patch with bounce houses and small carnival rides at the corner of a busy intersection—suburban polar opposite to what we’d hoped we’d find on the road, but we made memories there visiting this patch with family. We added to it standing in line for hours at Bass Pro Shop for their “Trunk-or-Treat” event, a crowded, uncomfortable, loud, and overpriced version of a community Halloween celebration, but it was a memory for Evelyn, so we smiled and chalked it up to experience.
Surely, somewhere there exists that perfect country community that celebrates Fall? Isn’t there a place out there somewhere that meets that ideal we keep hoping we’ll find?
This Fall, we found ourselves on the other side of the Mississippi River. If we couldn’t find what we were looking for in the South, it surely didn’t exist.
Well, we found it!
It’s in Sevierville, Tennessee, and it’s better than Disneyland!
It’s Kyker Family Farm, a family-run and owned business since its birth in 1808 when a Revolutionary War veteran was given opportunity to purchase land. At $1 an acre, the first Kyker bought 174 acres, and though it’s grown to over 600 acres over the years, this is land that has stayed in the family and been run by the family to the present day.
For $15 for Brent and myself, $13 for Evelyn, and no charge for Kailyn, we walked through the doors of a barn/gift shop onto rolling property bordered by three corn mazes, endless fun for the kids, and a hayride through the woods up to the pumpkin patch. The price included a pumpkin we each got to hand-select from the vines ourselves and bring back on the hayride.
When we walked in, Evelyn and Kailyn yelled, “Play!” and headed straight for the swings and slides.
The slides were made of transit tubes—a genius idea! The tall one was high up and it was fast! Kailyn tried the short slide once or twice before insisting on following Big Sis up to the high slide. She didn’t skip a beat—she pushed herself down the chute after counting, “One, two, THREE!”
The smile on her face was one of the widest I’ve seen as she rushed down toward her waiting mama at the bottom. She wasn’t even all the way down before I saw her signing and saying, “More?!”
There was also a “Corn Cob” swing made from more transit tubes, where kids could work together to glide along. The transit tube was used for more fun activities like “Hamster Wheel” (sections of tube on stationary wheels that kids could run inside of and make turn) and “Rat Race” (sections of tube along PVC tube tracks where kids could run inside and race to the hay bails at the ends).
There was tricycle racing, two kid-sized zip lines, and an air pillow, all tucked and nestled around the property.
As if that wasn’t enough, there was a barn housing goats, sheep, and chickens for feeding and petting. Kids could also bury themselves in the Corn Tub, a big cattle water tub filled with corn kernels like a big, corny sandbox. The barn housed a “Hay Crawl”, a miniature maze for toddlers and kids to crawl through made of hay bales, and a wooden cow kids could “milk”. Just outside of the barn, four old-fashioned hand-powered water pumps pushed rubber duckies down PVC pipes into a water trough for some water and racing fun.
We were there all day and Brent and Evelyn didn’t even run through their first corn maze until 20 minutes to closing, but there were three amazing corn mazes!
The hayride was probably the highlight of the day. We bumped along through the woods behind a tractor driven by the great, great, great, [great?] grandson of the original Kyker. He dropped us off up the hill behind the woods in the pumpkin patch, which overlooked rolling hills and neighboring farms. We took our time choosing the right pumpkins—Evelyn fretting over making just the right decision and worried other kids would find her perfect pumpkin before she did. Kailyn, fatigued from playing all afternoon, found the peaceful setting the perfect place to “take a moment”, so she brought back an extra “pumpkin”. What could we do but laugh and snap our pictures anyway?
We stayed until closing, reluctant to leave.
From the setting to the spirit to the history to the memories, it had been the perfect place and the perfect Fall and Halloween memory. I would most definitely make this a yearly tradition if it’s in the cards for us!
If you’re ever in eastern Tennessee in the Fall, you can’t find more family fun perfection than Kyker Family Farms!
For more pictures, check out ALL of our fun HERE:
