Wednesday, October 21, 2020
The primary activity slated for Wednesday was our visit to Mount Airy, North Carolina. Mount Airy was established in the 1750s as a stagecoach stop along the road between Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Galax, Virginia. Today, the population is reported to be a little over 10,000. It really gained notoriety – a sort of fame, really – as a result of a television show that starred a citizen of the town named Andy Griffith. The Andy Griffith Show, and its short-lived spinoff Mayberry RFD, were set in a fictional town called Mayberry that was patterned after Andy Griffith’s memories of growing up in Mount Airy. These days, the town enjoys about $5 million in annual revenue as a result of the Andy Griffith Museum, city tours in Mayberry “police cars,” and similar attractions around town. My primary interest was the Museum and the statue of Andy Griffith and Ron Howard just outside. Our last stop in Mount Airy was Andy Griffith’s childhood home (711 East Haymore Street, Mount Airy, NC) which is clearly marked by signage, is now available for overnight stays, and can be rented through the local Hampton Inn. I was not disappointed. But unless you’re a fan of the show – which means that you are probably well over 50 years of age – this might not be a stop worth making.
Following the Mount Airy and Mount Pilot visits, we drove on out to historic Rockford, North Carolina. Rockford is a tiny village that was founded in 1790, and still retains and maintains a number of historic buildings. Its most famous buildings – and we simply stumbled on this one – is the Rockford General Store. (It’s another case of “if you’re anywhere nearby, you really need to see this place for yourself!) It’s an opportunity to walk back in time about 75 years. From the old water-filled Coca Cola Cooler to the room-full-of-candy-jars, this place is pure unadulterated nostalgia. Probably my greatest regret about this trip was not having more time to explore the backroads here to get photos of the old buildings; for me, a place like this is a gold mine.
If you do make it to this area, there is one nature-based feature that I strongly recommend. Viewers of the Andy Griffith Show will remember frequent references to the closest “big city,” known as “Mount Pilot.” Not far from Mount Airy is Pilot Mountain, a beautiful National Natural Landmark at the heart of Pilot Mountain State Park. Pilot Mountain is an incredible natural monolith towering more than 1400 feet above the upper Piedmont plateau. The park contains an exceptionally well-designed observation point from which the mountain and the surrounding area may be viewed and photographed. One of my fellow photographers there on the day we visited told me that he arrives every day at sunrise to photograph the mountain, and due to the endless variations in weather and sun placement, the view is never the same.
