After a pretty intense week, Friday night I was able to start exploring Knoxville!

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Friday night I went to Central Burgers and Taps with some of the people I’ve met while here and their dogs. This is a very dog friendly city, and most places with outdoor seating allow dogs.

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Saturday morning began with a Crossfit class!

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I hadn’t done any intense exercise in a week, so it felt good to sweat! (And sweat I did—no AC!) We did about 1000 burpees, push ups, wall balls, and ab mat sit ups. Well, maybe not 1000, but over 100 of each! We did a deck of cards workout, where each movement was a deck of cards. The coach let the class choose, and apartment the class is full of masochists, haha! In all seriousness though, the people were SO nice. Some of the most genuinely nice people I’ve met in the Crossfit community. I wasn’t sure I was going to try to do a membership because the class time I can make is 5:30am (ouch), but I was won over!

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Next up was a trip to the only gluten free bakery in Knoxville, for their Saturday morning biscuits! Benefit Your Life was a bit of a drive (apparently you can drive 13 miles on the highway and still be in Knoxville?), but totally worth it. I got an egg and cheese biscuit, and a strawberry, banana, orange smoothie.

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Plus a chocolate chip cookie for later.

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After cleaning up, I enjoyed my lack of schedule by reading a book for an hour or so before heading out to explore the city (i.e. plant my butt in a coffeeshop and work on vet school apps). I headed to K Brew, and had to try their special, a honey lavender latte.

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I’m not normally a sweet coffee person, but this was AMAZING. I’m going to have to go back and try their cappuccinos too to really evaluate this coffeeshop!

I ate my cookie while working on apps. Necessary to make them a little bit sweeter. In all seriousness though, having such a low stress and happy environment makes them a lot less stressful.

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I was there for about 2 hours before I headed down to Market Square to walk around. Apparently there’s a nice farmer’s market there Saturday mornings!

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I then stopped at a salad and sandwich/burger restaurant for a turkey, avocado, and ranch salad.

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Followed by frozen custard. Chocolate/vanilla swirl.

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This was from Rita’s. Apparently there’s one near my house in CA that I have yet to try, but this was really good! (Shake Shack is better though.)

From there I drove around the area to try and get my bearings and ran some errands, before heading out again with the same people. We played corn holes, which I’m decent at but not as good as you might think, given my pitching background!

Today I have another full day to explore, and after my workout, I’m not sure what I want to do!

Have you ever been to Knoxville? Recommendations for me?