We have our run of the Allandale Mansion

On the list of attractions we wanted to see in Kingsport, Allandale Mansion was next, so we got our directions and hit the road.

We've seen a handful of mansions in our travels, and we thought it'd be cool to get a tour of this one in east Tennessee.

But, I guess, it doesn't work that way.

Out front of Allandale Mansion in Kingsport, Tennessee.

We pulled up the long driveway and were impressed by the front of the mansion with its covered steps and stately columns.

We found parking around back, and with the help of the nearby grounds crew, we made our way to the office entrance.

Inside, a woman was busy preparing for her appointment with a local bride-to-be - mansions like this are great for weddings - and she burst our tourist bubble by telling us the mansion was only really open to the public twice a year.

But then she surprised us by saying we could go through a door on the other side of her office and let ourselves around the mansion anyway.

Inside the front door of Allandale Mansion.

We took our own private, guide-less tour. We loved the working kitchen, marveled at the staircase in the front hall and checked out the bedrooms upstairs.

We didn't learn a thing about the history of the place, its residents, or its importance.

Upstairs in someone's important, probably historic bedroom at Allandale Mansion.

We took our pictures, resisted the urge to pose in funny ways with the mansion property and eventually saw ourselves out.

We snapped a few more pics out front and drove off. Who knows what goes on at Allandale Mansion, but at least the trustworthy staff saw fit not to deny a couple curious travelers.

Tri-Cities Flea Market welcomes us to the south

We didn't have a plan for our first day in east Tennessee, so when we saw the billboards hyping up the Tri-Cities Flea Market, that seemed like a fine place to kick things off.

The Tri-Cities (Johnson City, Kingsport and Bristol) Flea Market is pretty wild. It's situated in what appears to be an old quarry. The parking lot gives way to rows of long, matching buildings, each with dozens of vendors inside.

It wasn't long before we were surrounded by confederate flags, NASCAR tees, children's toys and rifles. Welcome to the south!

After shuffling through all the buildings we could find, we spotted a downhill bend in the road. There were more vendors in the next parking area down! From there, we found stairs leading further down to another spread of matching buildings. Even more vendors!

The Tri-Cities Flea Market, photo courtesy of the official website.

We got some cheap soda to help beat the heat, and continued on.

At $5 apiece, we found the first batch of Donald Trump for President tees that we'd ever seen. A little further on, a long-time sci-fi collector showed us around his collection of Star Wars action figures and other oddities. We found a fish scale and tape measure concealed as a can of Skoal chewing tobacco and took it home as a souvenir.

Elsewhere, a man was selling antiques that included real segregation-era signage and shackles that would've been used on women or children who were slaves. It was crazy to feel just how heavy a single leg shackle was.

We tried to explore every corner of the massive market, and we ended up closing the place down. By the time we made it back up to our car, the area was mostly deserted, but before we left, we made note of an unusual sign: it was an ad for a place called "Backyard Terrors," and it promised life-sized dinosaurs to anyone brave enough to visit.