2020: A Year in Review
To say that 2020 didn’t exactly go according to plan would be a gross, loathsome and unholy understatement. At the outset of the year, we had already made plans for the following events and experiences….
(3) Trip(s) to Walt Disney World Resort (Orlando, FL)
(1) Trip(s) to Universal Studios & Universal’s Islands of Adventure (Orlando, FL)
(1) Trip to Disneyland Resort (Anaheim, CA)
(1) Trip to Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg (TN)
(1) Trip to Hawaii
AwesomeCon 2020 (Washington D.C.)
Springtime in the Park at Hersheypark (Hershey, PA)
1st to Ride Event at Hersheypark (Hershey, PA)
Multiple Summertime Trips to Hersheypark (Hershey, PA)
Hersheypark in the Dark at Hersheypark (Hershey, PA)
Hersheypark Christmas Candylane (Hershey, PA)
Markoff’s Haunted Forest (Dickerson, MD)
Field of Screams MD (Olney, MD)
This was quite an ambitious list, and as two fulltime working adults we had planned each adventure very carefully in order to make the most of all our available time off. We began the year as everyone else did, believing that things would be business as usual. We will forever be thankful that we made it through one of our trips to Walt Disney World and our big trip to Universal Studios & Universal’s Islands of Adventure before the hammer came down. Even as late as mid-March 2020, as the first cases of COVID-19 began to appear on U.S. soil and the media began to make bold predictions of lockdowns and countermeasures, our minds could not help but turn back to the H1N1 pandemic that struck our country only a few years prior, and we expected similar dangers and precautions. At one juncture, I remember saying to my family, “I just don’t see it getting as bad here as it is overseas”.
Soon enough, I would be eating my words. It did get bad here. In fact, it got worse here than it did anywhere else in the world. Although the country as a whole did not lock down for long, select U.S. states as well as private businesses and establishments were (justifiably) reluctant to reopen and masks became our new cultural norm. We knew, at this point, that our summer, fall and winter plans would be for naught, and that many if not all of our adventures were suspended. For a time, our situation seemed absolutely without hope. But then - in those moments of hopelessness - something new was born. One day, as we sat around our apartment for the umpteenth day, we remarked on how much our quarantine reminded us of a scene from Disney’s ‘Muppet Treasure Island’. Moments later, we were tossing impromptu lyrics back and forth for a more apt ‘COVID’ version of the famous ‘Cabin Fever’ ensemble piece. And for the first time in a number of weeks, we were laughing. It was at this point that we looked to each other and agreed, “we have to share this with as many people as we can”.
‘COVID Fever’ - as we called it in the end - drew a lot of attention and fostered a lot of smiles. It took time, energy and patience to rally our ensemble cast of performers and collect fragments and video clips from all across the domestic United States, but it was so worth it to see the comments come pouring in thanking us for our hard work and for making people laugh. This really made an impact on us, and the impact didn’t stop there.
Shortly thereafter, we received word by email that Hersheypark had received approval to reopen beginning June 30th, 2020, and that their newest rollercoaster, Candymonium, was opening along with the rest of the park. Making the decision to attend the reopening was a no-brainer, but it was at this point that we stopped to ask ourselves - would others benefit from seeing our experience? Could we bring smiles to people through this short little visit to the outside world, the way that we did through our collaborative parody? The answer, we decided, was ‘yes’ - and that was the day that our YouTube channel, ‘timandkt’, was well and truly born.
As the summer went on, our channel base grew. We had engaged subscribers commenting and interacting with us, thanking us for sharing our experience, and most importantly, asking questions. One of the biggest turning points for our summer was receiving a comment along the lines of ‘We’re really looking forward to your review of Dorney Park’, to which our response was “Well, shoot, I guess we’re going to have to visit Dorney Park!” Each adventure led to another adventure, each vlog to another vlog. We spent our summer learning, growing, becoming passionate about exploring new venues and experiencing new things. So, while we got to do very little of what we had planned to do this year, we did get to do all of the following (and more)….
(2) Trip(s) to Walt Disney World Resort (Orlando, FL)
(1) Trip(s) to Universal Studios & Universal’s Islands of Adventure (Orlando, FL)
(3) Trip(s) to Knoebel’s Amusement Resort (Elysburg, PA)
(2) Trip(s) to Kennywood Park (Pittsburgh, PA)
(1) Trip to Six Flags Great Adventure (Jackson, NJ)
(1) Trip to Six Flags America’s Holiday in the Park (Bowie, MD)
(1) Trip to Dorney Park (Allentown, PA)
1st to Ride Event at Hersheypark (Hershey, PA)
Multiple Summertime Trips to Hersheypark (Hershey, PA)
Multiple Theme parks in ONE DAY (Hershey, PA & Elysburg, PA)
Hersheypark in the Dark at Hersheypark (Hershey, PA)
Hersheypark Christmas Candylane (Hershey, PA)
Legends of the Fog: Drive-Thru Edition (Aberdeen, MD)
Bull Run Festival of Lights (Centreville, VA)
As you can see from our list above and our compilation video/highlight reel below, we may have actually wound up doing more, experiencing more, exploring more this year than we had planned to. This, in spite of everything going on around us, and - in some ways - because of everything going on around us.
Nobody in their right mind would dare try to spin 2020 as a ‘good’ year. Many among us lost loved ones, employment or even the roof(s) above our heads. The COVID-19 pandemic has all but decimated the economy, the sufficiency of our domestic healthcare and has created hard political lines dividing households, families and friends. Even prior to COVID-19, our friends overseas were struggling to contain wildfires and keep wars from erupting in civilian territories. Compared to all of this, our personal victories and/or setbacks regarding the ‘timandkt’ vlog channel are laughably unimportant.
But, as we head into the new year, we have seen renewed hopefulness amongst our friends and family. We have seen tremendous growth and we feel that we have been lucky enough to have made a real and positive impact on others. We took something terrible like 2020 and we turned it into something positive, hopeful and new. In 2021, we look forward to brighter skies, new adventures and continued growth as we recommit to the mission that haphazardly formed for us in the year now past. We are Tim and Katie, and we are here to prove to you all that every day can be a new adventure.
