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The Great Literary Trip: Day 1

Hello everyone, and welcome to 16 days on the road with Between the Pages! I am traveling the east coast for around two weeks finding the best bookstores, exploring literary sites, and plundering my way through roughly 2,000 miles of land, through hamlets and cities, through rain and sun. This reader is up to the challenge. Are you?

As promised, I will supply a daily report of my wanderings including the cities we explored, the sites we discovered, and the shops we visited. Without further adieu, here is day 1! (More exciting reports are to come, as driving was today's main {*only*} activity.)

Day 1

CITIES

We made it to three main cities today: Bristol, TN, Knoxville, TN, and Charlottesville, VA. Again, today's main activity was driving (and driving and driving and driving). Today was not my first journey to any of the three cities; however, this road trip shed new light on each one.


BOOKSTORES

Our first literary stop of the entire trip was a spontaneous one. The original plan was just to drive all day so that we could start fresh with numerous stops tomorrow. But, as we were driving through Knoxville searching for a cold unsweet tea, we decided to drop in on Union Square Books for a couple spare minutes. 


While I am not usually one for spontaneity, this stop was a great one. The store was adorable and made me happy. That's the best way I can describe our first bookstore of the road trip: happy. Settled on a shaded and charming downtown street, Union Square Books is a light and airy oasis in the middle of Knoxville. As soon as I pulled open the glass door that gave us a preview of the shop from the street, we immediately saw my favorite aspect of the store: the staff picks and bestsellers shelves. These shelves showed me, the patron, exactly what Union Square Books values in a book. Though my visit was short, I thoroughly enjoyed my limited time at Union Square Books. 



Today was a great start to this literary road trip! I will check in tomorrow with another update. 

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