McKay's, Bargain Hunters, and the Sunsphere

Two weeks before Christmas was probably not the best time to get the urge to go somewhere, and then act on that urge by going to Knoxville, but I went ahead and did it anyway!

For as long as I've been buying presents, I've always been the sort to have my Christmas shopping done months in advance, waiting until the month of seems very odd to me, so odd, that at least once a year I have to be reminded that many people do this -- unfortunately for me, this reminder doesn't come until I'm out somewhere amongst people who are frantically searching for last minute gifts, such was the case on this particular day.

It's not very often that I get the urge to go somewhere, but when I do, I usually end up at McKay's (for those that don't know, it's a gignormous bookstore that also sells just about every other form of entertainment that one could think of as well). I think it's safe to say that it's my favorite place to go since moving to Tennessee, ideally I'd like to be there at least once a month, but because of the drive,  that hasn't worked out so well -- I'm on more of a once every 2-3 months schedule.

Knowing that I'd be going back to Knoxville at some point, I started looking for other places to go about a month prior, namely antique malls. Knoxville doesn't have nearly as many antique malls as I would've thought they would, but I did find one that looked promising, so time permitting, I was going to try and fit that into this trip as well -- spoiler alert, I did have time, and did go, and you'll be hearing about it a little further down in the post, but before I get to that...

My heart really wasn't in it this time, but I still made an effort to look through the massive $1.99 or less DVD/Blu-Ray section, mostly because they're starting to add a lot more television seasons to the mix, and I keep hoping that I'll come across something that I actually like -- the problem is, I'm not usually a fan what's popular with the masses, so finding things like American Horror Story and The Walking Dead doesn't do too much for me. I did find a few other things though, so...

Most people either love it or hate it (and aren't likely to have their opinion changed either way), so I won't spend a lot of time talking about the film adaption of Watchmen, other than to say that I'm a fan of it, and had been looking for a cheap copy of the director's cut (if you've never seen it, this the version to watch) for a what seems like a few years now, thankfully that search is now over.

You know how hearing and/or seeing certain things can take you back to a certain time or place? Well, odd as it may sound, early Chuck Norris films do just that for me. All I have to do is think about one, and I'm instantly whisked back to the mid 90's. I don't know how many people still remember it, but Chuck's early work was a Friday night (late) staple on WGN for what seemed like years. I can't tell you how many times I'd meet up with friends on Monday morning, and try to talk about either that weekend's Chuck Norris picture, Up All Night's offering, and/or MonsterVision gem -- only to find that they had no idea what I was talking about! In retrospect, I really wish that I could've had a group of friends whose interests were more in line with mine.

I don't recall how old I was at the time, but Death Rides a Horse was the first spaghetti western that I ever saw, and because of this it's always held a special place in my heart. I've had multiple copies on VHS over the years, but for $0.95 I couldn't resist the opportunity to finally get an upgrade. And Beyond the Law might not be Lee Van Cleef's best film, but it's still very watchable.

And that was it for the cheap DVD's, there was just so many people looking through them, a few of whom were doing that terribly annoying thing of talking (loudly) to each other from what was essentially across the room (50 or so feet apart). I really dislike being caught in the middle of those kinds of conversations, so for the first time since I've been going there, I just walked away without having gone through all of the bargain stuff.

The comic books upstairs were my next stop, where I spent way too much time looking at the recent influx of bargain comics (most are $0.40). When it was all said and done, I had a stack of about a dozen books, but after looking through them again, I realized that I didn't really need them, and the odds of me actually ever reading them was pretty slim, so back into the box they went. This may have seemed like a waste of time to some, but I was kind of proud of myself for being able to put them back, as that's not something that I would've been able to do even just a few short years ago.

All of the music is upstairs too, and even though I hadn't intended on looking for anything, thanks to some folks who I had to squeeze by (they were blocking the aisle), a CD caught my eye, one which I didn't ultimately get, but it did lead me to two other's.

For the most part, compilations are the only CD's that I ever buy anymore. When looking through them, I usually just look for the one's that I don't already have at least half of the songs on other albums -- and this one fit the bill! One of the reasons that I like McKay's so much is that they actually lower the prices on things, which is very uncommon for places that sell this kind of stuff. I always get a kick out of coming home and peeling off items that have more than one sticker (they put price stickers on top of each other) on them, and seeing what the previous price(s) was. In this case, I paid $2.95 (not bad for around twenty songs that I didn't own), but the price on the sticker underneath that one was $4.95.

I remember the Living in Oblivion series being THE go to for 80's compilations about 25 years ago. With the internet being a thing now, there's probably plenty of other options out there, but I still have an affinity for this series.

Since I'm always trying to go to multiple places while in Knoxville, but still be out of Knoxville proper by the time rush hour starts up, I don't usually get to spend as much time at McKay's as I would like, meaning that certain things end up not getting looked at -- like books, which is fine, since at any given time I haven dozens of books in my "to read" pile, but this time I made it a point to wander over to the history section before leaving.

Normally I wouldn't get two books on the same subject, at least not at the same time, but after flipping through them both - trying to figure out which one would be better - it seemed like even though they were about the same disaster, the authors went in different directions when writing about it. So, since I couldn't decide which one sounded better, and with them only being $0.25 apiece, I just went ahead and got them both. I've already read the Thomas/Witts book, and would recommend it to anyone who might be interested in the subject matter. It's a bit cliche to say, but the way it was written, you really feel like you're reading a movie, a very fast paced movie!

So that was it for McKay's, I don't remember what the exact total was, but I think I ended up using around $10 in credit.

After eating my lunch in the car, it was off to Bargain Hunters, which is about fifteen minutes away, and is much further into Knoxville than I had previously gone. My first surprise came when I saw the Sunsphere on the way there, I had no idea that I would be going by it, as such I couldn't get any pictures on the way, but plenty were taken on the way back (those are a little further down).

I had read a bunch of reviews for Bargain Hunters, most of which were positive, but there weren't very many pictures, and I didn't see any mention of how many booths there were, so I really didn't know what to expect -- after all, I've never actually been to a place that bills itself as an antique mall and flea market.

For those who have never been, but are planning on going, one small bit of advice, don't be like me and think that you're just gonna show up and be in and out in 30 minutes or less, at least not on your first trip -- because this place is big! The layout isn't conducive to photos, but there had to be at least 200 booths, and lots of variety, in fact there was too much variety for the short amount of time that I had left for myself to look around, and ended up seeing less than half of what there was to see.

I was really surprised too with how many booths had comic books, I made it through a few, but that was just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. This picture was from the last one that I walked by on my way to the register. I had to go, so I just stopped long enough to take the picture, and then continued on my way.

Besides the huge selection, it doesn't help either that I didn't have a lot of money to play with that day, as such I only ended up buying two things, and one of those was for my mom. I found this issue of Unexpected in comic box that said everything in it was between $1-4. It's from later in the series, but I didn't have it, and it's in fairly decent shape, so I figured it was worth the $2 price tag.

I will definitely be going back, but next time I won't be trying to do McKay's before, I'll just go straight there -- and thanks to Mark Aubrey, I now know that there's a comic book shop that's just a couple of blocks away too, so I'll be trying to hit that up as well.

On to the Sunsphere...

As mentioned, I couldn't get any pictures on the way there, but I was ready for it on the way back. I ended up taking a ton of pictures while I was driving (don't do that, kids!), but don't worry, I was paying attention to the road, I just pointed the phone in it's general direction, and kept snapping away. I probably ended up taking around fifty pictures, with the four in this post being the only good one's, the rest were either blurry, or didn't even have the Sunsphere showing in the frame.

Oh, and just in case anyone doesn't know what the Sunsphere is, and doesn't feel like Googling it, the short answer is that was built for the 1982 World's Fair, serving as the symbol for that year's fair. Fans of The Simpsons might also know it as the "Wigsphere", and no, I didn't stop in for a wig.

This is my favorite one right here, you can see the sphere just peeking out from around the Church Street United Methodist Church (I looked it up), which is an incredible looking building (you need to Google it when you're done commenting on this post). I'll have to try and get some better shots of the church at some point as well.

This was as close as I got to the sphere. It was unfortunate that it had to be cloudy that day, as I would imagine that those glass panes are quite a sight when the sun is out. That being said, I'm still glad that I was finally able to see it in person.

It's rare for me to describe a day spent among the masses as "fun", but this truly was a fun day!

If all goes well, I'm planning on heading back to Knoxville this week, so another McKay's/mystery place post may be up in the very near future...


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.