Mayberry and other stuff

We visited Mt. Airy, the birthplace of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for Mayberry.

The town has lot of things named Mayberry or named after something/someone on the Andy Griffith show, and even has an Andy Griffith museum, which had a lot of memorabilia. Here are doors from the TV show:

Take a look at this collage of pictures of Andy Griffith- doesn’t the one on the top right look like Opie?:

And of course there was a statue:

The museum was small but interesting, but it was packed with people, so you didn’t get too much of a chance to really look at things. The main street of town itself is full of souvenir shops and antique/junk stores.

You could take a tour of the town in an old Sheriff’s car:

If you are not a HUGE Andy Griffith fan, I would skip this stop when in the neighborhood.

We drove by Wake Forest University- it’s a pretty school, with all reddish-orange brick buildings. We also went by North Carolina State University. Not sure if we will get to Duke or University of North Carolina.

We have noticed a few things while on this trip:

A lot of people smoke! I don’t know if that is to be expected since they grow tobacco here, but we did not expect to see people smoking as they walk down the street! Here is a field of tobacco:

Sorry it’s a little blurry- that’s what happens when I try to take pics while Jerry is driving!

Crocs are VERY popular here! We have seen sooooo many kids and adults wearing Crocs, it has been quite a surprise! Haven’t seen many (maybe even any) Birkenstocks!

Gas is so much cheaper here! We saw it for $2.95 the other day- wish I had needed to fill up! Generally it’s around $3.10-$3.50, depending on where you are and the station. Reminds me of the good old days!

The air has been bad due to smoke from the Canadian wildfire- reminds us of home- and not in a good way! Here is the sunset through the smoke:

And some fireflies at the campground:

Jerry had said “we haven’t seen any fireflies on this trip”, so later that evening, we saw some- MAGIC! Those 3 yellow things are fireflies- they flash while flying, so they are a bit blurry, and you never know where they are going to be, so I just watch for some to flash, then focus on that area and keep taking pictures of that space until I get some- I took 13 pictures of this patch of grass and dirt before getting this one! 🙂