McKay’s 50th anniversary road trip
Travelogue of a truly bonkers day
McKay’s, my beloved local used bookstore, turned FIFTY last year and celebrated the milestone on July 9th, 2024 with a one-day-only road trip promotion across their five locations in North Carolina and Tennessee.
When the announcement dropped at the beginning of June, one of my friends shared the post to the group chat, another offered to rent a minivan so we could all ride together, one by one we put in time-off requests at work, and… that was that. I mean, look at these prizes:
We planned our route in advance, calculating how long the drive between locations would be, figuring out how much time we could spend at each store while also budgeting for gas, food, and bathroom stops along the way. We were so ready!
And in the end, nothing really went as expected.
7:45am: Everyone—Emily and Caleb, Brian and Becca, Jordan and me—assembles at our house and we set out in our rented Chrysler (F-ckin’) Pacifica. The hype chant for the trip has already been established: C-F-P! C-F-P! The Winston-Salem location is our first destination, and when we arrive there is already a line in the parking lot. Everyone is happy. Some groups are wearing coordinating themed t-shirts they’ve made. We overhear a few people saying they’ve already been to Mebane and picked up their passports—apparently stamping got going well ahead of the stated 8am start time. We wait maybe twenty minutes before picking up our passports, signing our waivers, getting our first location stamp, and continuing on our way.
8:35am: Jordan has called in a to-go order at Acadia, so we swing by there to pick up sustenance in the form of biscuits and coffee. With the CFP comfortably cruising down I-40 toward Mebane, it feels like our adventure has now officially begun.
9:55am: Approaching the Mebane location’s exit, we see a HUGE line of cars stretched maybe a half mile or more down the highway waiting to get off, so we pass by, take the next exit instead, and snake our way back toward the store via some smaller roads. Emily finds us a parking spot on the street in a nearby neighborhood and we get out and walk.
10:00am: It’s completely wild out here. A free-for-all. Cars are parked on the side of the main road, everywhere, and people are milling about all over the place. Everyone we pass headed the other direction says something along the lines of “good luck,” or “it’s gonna be a while,” or “hope you have water with you,” and when we get up to the parking lot we can see a line snaked around the outside of the building and winding every which way. Luckily, a kind stranger tells us that the line is people waiting for passports—if we already have them, we can just go straight inside. There’s chaos in the building as well, but we get our stamps and pick up the second location prize, a commemorative t-shirt with the above road trip design on it. Part of our group stands in the long line for the bathroom while others do a quick browse. I find a copy of Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel for 75 cents!
10:19am: On our way back to the car we pass a police car, directing people to stop parking along the street because it’s blocking traffic. A poor UPS delivery person is idling in the road probably wondering what the hell is happening.
10:30am: We’re back in the van and headed toward Knoxville. This is the longest leg of the trip. Everyone is mostly quiet—reading, scrolling our phones, looking out the window. Occasionally someone will pipe up with news from social media about what’s going on at other McKay’s locations, like Mebane and Winston-Salem letting folks know that they now only have to visit one or the other, not both. We’re guessing that Mebane police ordered the staff there to disperse as much of the crowd as possible, and we’re laughing at how baffled the town must be by the sudden hordes of nerds descending on a random Tuesday morning.
11:53am: The CFP is running low, so we stop at a gas station to refill her and use the facilities.
2:45pm: We take another break, this time at a rest stop, and Emily decides that our minivan is in fact a tractor trailer truck.
3:50pm: After parking in the Knoxville McKay’s lot and standing in line outside the store for about 10 or 15 minutes, we realize that the line we’re in is only for a passport sticker and no other prizes. So we scout out the correct line, because we want that first $50 in store credit, and we wait. And wait. And wait. It’s sunny and hot, and people are getting dehydrated and passing out. The parking lot next door, through which the line meanders and weaves, is filled with fire trucks, ambulances, and EMS vehicles, including the mass casualty charter bus.
4:46pm: The fire department tells everyone that they’re shutting this down and that we should head to our next destination, where they’ll give us the passport stamp we would’ve gotten in Knoxville. Most of the line departs, but I notice that McKay’s employees are still working their way down the line with stickers and store credit vouchers, so we stick around, and within fifteen minutes we’ve reached the front of the store and received our goodies. We snap a weary yet celebratory selfie with the store’s sign and a fire truck in the background, then pile back into the van.
5:25pm: Thinking that the majority of the giant crowd that just left Knoxville is probably headed to Chattanooga next, we do some quick calculations and decide to go to Nashville instead. If there isn’t too much of a wait there, we should still be able to loop back and hit Chattanooga before the challenge ends at midnight. Plus, that way we’ll end our trip a little closer to where we’re spending the night, at Jordan’s grandparents’ farm in Jefferson City. Fingers crossed!
6:40pm: Having picked up Burger King for dinner, everyone is now finished eating and back to doing their own thing in the CFP. Jordan and I briefly hop on my family’s weekly video call to say hi and report about our road trip progress, but mostly we’re gazing out the window, checking our phones, reading, or dozing.
7:51pm: We had to park at an elementary school next door, but we made it to the Nashville location! Walking up to the store, we see that there is indeed a line here as well. Alas. We gear up to wait for a while. There’s a beautiful sunset, at least!
8:46pm: At the front of the line, we show our passports and answer questions about which prizes we’ve received so far. By now it’s clear that we won’t logistically be able to reach our last stop in time, so a kind McKay’s employee stamps us for both Nashville and Chattanooga, dispenses the remaining store credit we would’ve earned at both places, and throws in an extra $80 for each of us since today has been such A Whole Thing. Because we’re not busting ass to get back on the road, we allow ourselves a little while to actually browse the store—it feels amazing to stop rushing around and just look at some books.
9:51pm: Everyone has finished checking out. I found a $4 copy of The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel! We pose for a few “WE DID IT” photos and load ourselves back into the CFP to head for our sleeping accommodations. As we’re pulling out of the parking lot, we notice that the line has now stretched all the way down the hill toward the street. A salute to these remaining adventurers, and we’re off.
1:15am: The timing gets fuzzy here, because tired. What I know is that we stop at Buc-ee’s (something like the love child of a gas station, rest stop, Cracker Barrel, and Home Depot, for the uninitiated) to fuel up the CFP and pick up some late-night snacks. All I want is a bag of french onion Sun Chips, but there are truly none to be found. Shuffling by one of the food stations toward the restroom, eyes drooping with fatigue, I’m startled awake by a sudden shout of “FREEEEESH BRISKET ON THE BOARD!!” and that, combined with the aggressively bright fluorescent lighting, completely unmoors me from time and space. We reconvene outside, agree amongst ourselves that Buc-ee’s has the best and cleanest gas station bathrooms we’ve ever seen, and continue on our way.
3:16am: We’ve reached Jordan’s family’s farm, split up into our rooms, and hastily brushed our teeth. Tomorrow we will recap and debrief, but for now, we drop into our beds like stones.
The next day
We sleep until we wake up, not nearly rested enough but it’ll have to do. Jordan makes us a breakfast around noon and I don’t know if I’ve ever tasted anything better.
Fortified by the food, we bop around the farm for a few minutes, say hi to the cows, and marvel at the haunted old house on the property.
Because five bookstores in one day simply isn’t enough for us, we stop in Asheville on our way back to Winston-Salem and have ourselves a browse at Malaprop’s.
Pizza and beer at Terra Nova rounds out our recovery day, and I can’t emphasize enough how blissful it feels to sit in the sun with my friends, lazily chatting and laughing about everything we went through less than twenty-four hours before.
A year later, I’m still amazed at how wildly McKay’s underestimated what the turnout for this roadtrip would be. They were so overwhelmed and understaffed. It was crowded and chaotic and hot. I hope they learned from the experience and will be much more prepared if they ever try another promotion like this in the future.
But it was also silly and memorable. The sense of community was strong.
Are there things I’d do differently as a participant if I could go back? Absolutely. We thought starting in North Carolina and heading west was the smarter choice because we’d gain an hour when we crossed into the central time zone, when we might have been better off crowd-wise had we done the opposite. But hey, we didn’t know. We were just six friends in a van, fighting for our lives and $5,280 in used bookstore credit. Would we do it again? I can’t speak on everyone’s behalf, but I certainly would. Hell yeah. C-F-P!
Happy 51st, McKay’s.
♥︎
The recap I've been waiting for! lol what an adventure, and SO much used bookstore credit. Next time, count me in!
This is bananas! YAY FOR PEOPLE LOVING BOOKSTORES