Mount Airy, North Carolina

Yesterday was spent visiting with relatives and friends in North Carolina.  We started out this morning heading north into Virginia and West Virginia.  Our first stop was to get a good look at Pilot Rock before pulling into Mount Airy, North Carolina.  If those names seem slightly familiar, it is probably because you used to watch Mayberry, RFD.

Mount Airy is a real town and was the birthplace and childhood home of Andy Griffith.


Naturally, there is a museum and an appropriate bronze statue.


But the town's roots were in a nearby granite quarry.  Numerous homes in town demonstrate the wealth that came from that quarry.  It is worth stopping to take a walking tour of the town near the Griffith museum even if you don't visit it.


Pilot Mountain is another of those natural markers that was used for navigation for many centuries.  Only much later did it give a name to a town on Mayberry, RFD.