Shazaaaam!

Beautiful southern Kudzu

7-26-11:  We are in beautiful Mt. Airy, NC.  It is loaded with kudzu and crepe mytle.  And it is the birthplace of Andy Griffith, Donna Fargo (she still lives here – remember what she sang?), the largest open pit granite quarry in the US, and the famous Siamese twins, Eng and Chang. Mt Airy is the town that fictional Mayberry is patterned after. We are staying at the Mayberry RV Park, on Andy Taylor St, and I do laundry at Thelma Lou's.  Love, love, LOVE the accents here.  Adorable.  They make me sound like a Yankee!  The young hairdresser I had today was really into my travel stories.  She said, “Now have ya'll been to New York? Cause I hear there's some purdy big waterfalls up there?”  I hesitantly said, “ya mean Niagara?”. She said, “Yayah, I thank that's the ones!”  She was hilarious.

Doesn't this make ya wanna whistle?

vroooom

David and I went to the Andy Griffith Museum.  Small, but great!  I guess we all feel like Andy and the Mayberry peeps are kinfolk.  So when you see the tweed suit Barney wore, and the dresses Helen wore among other memorabilia, it's like looking at family belongings.  We went downtown and had some good southern home-cooking at Barney's Cafe.

Cumberland Knob overlook

Mt Pilot named for this

David and Becky at Betseys Falls

Mountain Laurel or Rhododendron

View on the Blue Ridge Mtn Pky

Tom Dooley

Falls Creek Cascades

Blue Ridge Mtns North Carolina

North Carolina Tobacco field

Christmas Tree Farm

Cone Manor on Blue Ridge Mtn Pkwy

7-27-11:  David, Rocky, and I took the Blue Ridge Mtn Parkway from Virginia to Boone, NC.  Beautiful and loaded with Mountain Laurel and Rhododendron.   At Cumberland Knob we could see Pilot Mountain, which is where Andy got the name for the town up the road from Mayberry, Mt. Pilot. The Confederates frequently used Pilot Mtn as a lookout.  The Pkwy isn't a Nat'l Forest here so there are many privately owned homes and farms – beautiful farms on mountainsides.  We know that NC is home to large tobacco crops, but today we learned where Christmas trees come from.  So many gorgeous Christmas tree farms in the NC hills!  At the Lump Overlook, we saw a sign about Tom Dula. You remember that song, right?  The pronunciation was changed to local dialect “Tom Dooley”.

Stopped for a picnic at Falls Creek.  After eating, David walked down the trail and got pix of the Cascades at Falls Creek while Rocky and I hung out in the shade and kept guard of the place. On the way home, we happened upon the Cone Manor, quite the mansion and visitor center.

down at Wally's

Might be a good job!

let's go find some jaywalkers!  citizen's arrest! citizen's arrest!

Andy's childhood home - now a b & b

Andy's childhood church

Mt Airy Granite Quarry

David Darlin

i wanna be your salty dog

the courthouse

Hello, Sarah?

the sheriff at work

where are those keys when ya need 'em?

remember the cannon episode?

Barney's Cafe

let's go down to Floyd's

Bec and the real Emmitt

7-28-11:  Shazaaam!!  We went for a tour of Mayberry (Mt. Airy) in Andy's and Barney's squad car. I'll be dog if that wasn't a right nice time!  We left from Wally's Station. The driver, DC Rollins grew up with Andy.  DC is African American, so they didn't attend school together (before integration), but played and got into mischief together.  When they were little Andy would fight folks if they didn't think he was funny.  DC took us over to the Granite Quarry.  This granite is used for a lot of federal bldgs, such as the old post offices (like Texarkana's downtown p.o.) and Washington, D.C. bldgs.

We saw the church that Andy attended here with his parents (Baptist), Snappy's, Floyd's barber shop (the real Floyd is still cutting hair), and Andy's childhood home – which is a b & b now owned by a hotel chain.  We also saw Emmitt's childhood home.  Emmitt Forrest was Andy's best bud growing up.  The show's Emmitt Clark is a combo between Emmitt F, and a Mt Airy mayor, E.T. Clark.  And surprise, surprise, surprise! The real Emmitt's Mercedes was in the museum parking lot when we went by, so he was on the grounds.  After the tour, we visited the Darlin Farm & the Courthouse.  Then we thought it'd be a good idee to go back to the museum to meet Emmitt. He was a sweetheart.  He still lives here.  The actress who played Thelma Lou lives here as well. She got robbed and burglarized a couple of times in CA, so she moved here because Andy always talked about it. Last year, she was robbed at the Lowe's Food Store here --- IN MAYBERRY!!   Emmitt says she's doing well and the 2 of them get together often.   Got his autograph and pic.  There is a website that you might find interesting: 

http://www.telovation.com/articles/andy-griffith-show.html.

Andy and his 3^rd wife, Cyndi, (who is about my age) live on the NC coast, about 6 hours away.

Mt. Airy has to be about the friendliest town we've come across!  (In fact, they are in the running for “friendliest town)  Everyone speaks to us like they've known us forever and really and truly want to know how we are.  David and I have spent the week trying to talk like Andy and his Mayberry folk.  Thx for tolerating a bit of it in this paragraph. Much obliged!!

Mabry's Mill

Sorghum presser

David at the mill

Blue Ridge Mtn Pkwy in Virginia

Buffalo Mountain

Rocky Knob Hike

Blue Ridge Mtn Farm

7-29-11:  Took the Virginia part of the Blue Ridge Pkwy drive today.  Oh so beautiful.  Saw deer with a fawn on at least 3 different occasions.  Stopped at Puckett's cabin.  Mrs. Puckett lived to 102 and was an Appalachian midwife.  She delivered babies for $1-$6, depending on how good times were.  She had 24 children of her own, none of who lived beyond infancy. Next we stopped at Mabry's Mill.  Interesting to google. Lots of Appalachian history there.  We saw farm equipment from back in the day.  They used to make molasses sorghum.  Today they did a demo of stone grinding. Chestnut trees were used for practically everything from fences, to toys, to eating.  Early in the 1900's they became infested and by 1929 were gone.  The chestnut fences are still around up here, tho fragile. Pretty and educational spot. 

Stopped at Rocky Knob to picnic, then took the 1 mile hike there.  Easy level of difficulty.  However, “easy” is in the eyes of the beholder.  I could've used my walking stick in a few spots. Signs everywhere saying bears were active and to watch out.  We were hoping to see one, but they weren't out.  Did see a doe and fawn.  Great hike.  Buffalo Mtn is the highest point on this section of the drive. Parents used to tell their kids that they were free to go wherever they wanted as long as they didn't lose sight of the Buffalo Mtn. Stopped at Groundhog Mtn which is a great view as well.

7-30-11:  Today we ate at Aunt Bea’s bbq. If you ever come here, don’t bother with this place.  It’s a little fast food joint. Somehow, it seems to me that a place that’s gonna call itself by her name should be serving fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and some kind of yummy pie. Afterward we went to the “picture show” and saw Crazy, Stupid, Love.  It was crazy and stupid and we loved it!! 

We will wrap up our stay here this week after a visit to Charlotte to see Madeleine.  Then on to Asheville.

Groundhog Mtn Overlook

Be sure to visit my blog again!  Or should I say “ya’ll come back now, ya hear?”

Love,

Barney and Aunt B

Country Roads, Take Me Home..............

Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River..........

Why is it that being in the mountains makes me sing John Denver songs? (much to David's dismay)

7-18-11:  Left PA today, crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, drove through Maryland and the Catoctin Mtns, crossed the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers (which meet at one point) went through West Virginia, Harpers Ferry, and arrived in Luray, VA – the Shenandoah Valley!  Oh so beautiful. We traveled on the Stonewall Jackson Mem Hwy.  Talk about your historical markers! This part of the country is loaded with them.  Our campground – Country Waye – is surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mtns in the Appalachians. Yes, Lisa S., I feel like I wake up in a postcard each day!

7-20-11:  I could live here!!  Even with the heat wave, what a country! If you are in Luray and you like sweet tea – Uncle Buck's is the place to go.  Yummmm, that's the best sweet tea I've had since I was a little girl.

Today David, Rocky, and I took the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah Nat'l Park. Great CCC history and structures here.  It's 105 miles and took us 6 ½ hours!  We entered through the north entrance.  Sadly, it was quite hazy.  Although I'm sure this major heatwave had a lot to do with that, we read at one of the overlooks that most of the haze is created by human polution.  Even so, the views were magnificent.  And what's great about this forest is that most of the trees are still green! We've been to so many since we've started traveling that have dead or diseased trees.  We saw few pines in comparison to the hardwoods, so I'm guessing Fall is spectacular!  Around the 13 mile marker we saw a whitetail buck with velvet antlers trying to cross the road.  He was a beauty.  We'd been told to expect to see lots of deer and black bear.   Until the buck, we were beginning to think the only wildlife there were bumblebees and butterflies!  Although the temp was close to 100 in the Valley, it quickly dropped to the 70's in the mtns. Stayed between 73-77 all day.  So we had our windows down for most of the drive and could smell the honeysuckle and beautiful wildflowers – which were abundant.   Sounded like a bird haven in some spots – lots of chirping and singing. We stopped at dang near every overlook except for a couple we couldn't get to due to road construction. At Rattlesnake Point, we saw what looked like thousands of blue ridges!  The highest point was over 4000 in elev.  One of the prettiest spots on the road was Mary's Rock Tunnel.  It was made in 1932.  At Franklin Cliffs Overlook we saw an Amish girls' day out – a vanload of just the girls having lunch in the shade.   David sure wanted to stop and see if they had some Trail Bologna.  At Big Meadow we stopped for a little break and saw “Iron Mike” - a statue memorializing the “boys” of the CCC.  Saw a pretty good size fox.  Nice. Still no bear. Toward the south end of the drive, we started seeing lots of beautiful kudzu. Some of the prettiest I've ever seen is at home between Fulton, AR and Saratoga, AR.  But this had that beat. Just miles and miles of it and so thick! Welp no black bear sightings – UNTIL we got on the interstate to go home! A small one ran across all 4 lanes of traffic.  It was so cute and arrived safely on the other side. Drove home through some breathtaking Virginia farmland, swam a bit at the rv park, then watched the sunset behind the Appalachians. I could live here!

7-21-11:  Drove over to Harrisonburg, VA.  It's a cute little town full of history and tiny roads. Ate at a great place called Dave's.  Drove through Shenandoah, VA and saw an abundance of my fave trees – really big, blossoming Mimosas.

7-22-11:  We drove back to the Skyline Drive today to do a little hiking.  Would've loved to have given part the Appalachian Trail a try.  There are so many great trails in the Nat'l Park. The heatwave here is pretty serious, as it is in most of the country.  Although it's cooler in the high country, we chose a very easy one, The Limberlost Trail.  The ferns grow up here like grass.  Tall and lush. We saw several chipmunks, but no bears. We did come upon a trail ride.  I was jealous. But we were getting some good exercise.  After the hike we drove over to Big Meadow for lunch. Ran into a couple of friends from the rv park, Ted and Karen.  As we were leaving there, we saw twin fawns in the brush.  Sooo sweet. Look for their spots in my pix.  Headed on out through Thornton Gap and lo and behold!  A fairly good size black bear!  So beautiful!  Just running through a field and watching us so he could beat us across the road.  We got a very good look at him with his cute little face and ears.  But couldn't get the camera out quickly enough to get a face shot.  The pic you see here is once he got to the side of the road.  It's been a good day.

7-24-11:  David went to the Luray Caverns this morning.  I did laundry – yep, I sure know how to have a good time.  But I did get a t-shirt out of the deal as if I had been there with him.  He said it was pretty interesting - maybe not a do-again. There is some interesting history of the caverns if you want to google.  Be sure to look at the story about the organ which plays on the formations.  A wishing well in the caverns has accumulated a lot of money.  Each year they clean the money out of it and donate to charity.  Dollar bills are also thrown in and those are taken out every couple of days.  The sign said to date there has been about $900,000 plus donated from this well. There is also a car museum at the caverns.   He got some awesome pix which I'm including.

Stayed tuned for North Carolina and Tennessee.


Stay in Touch!


Stonewall and Mary Anna