Merry Mt. Airy

You can get anything you want in ..... Mt. Airy, NC.  

We are having so much fun here.  We were trying to remember the other day who it was and where we were that someone told us about Mt. Airy, NC.  Have you heard of the town before?  Why?  What do you remember?  We'd never heard of it and we are  so glad that whomever it was told us about it.  When they told us it was the town that the Andy Griffith show was based on we knew we had to come see what the heck it was all about.  

Turns out it is all we'd expected and more!  You walk down Main Street and there are a plethora of shops selling "Andy" stuff, Barney stuff, Goober stuff etc. but there are many other shops as well.  It also seems to be quite "artsy" (but not "artsy fartsy") here.

It is pretty hard to describe.  Friendly, oh my the people are so so friendly - weird sort of ~ people wave to you as you drive by.  Today we came to a red light and someone pulled up next to us and starts a conversation while we're waiting for the light to change - just things like that ~ we've not seen elsewhere along the way.

Also, there are several vineyards in the area - probably a dozen and a half within 40 miles.  I'm thinking of doing a tour, but who knows if I'll actually do it in our time remaining here.  Speaking of which, we came in last Wednesday (a week ago) for three nights - well here we are a week later and will be here until next Tuesday at least (a different blog post).

The three photos immediately above are taken inside the "jail" (obviously, I guess).  The first is of one of the Sheriff's cars on Main Street.

Below is outside Wally's Service and Emmet's fix it shop.  More on those in a later post.

Below is the outside of the Andy Griffith Museum (did the sign over the door give it away?)  We did tour the Museum today - I'm glad the admission was only $3.00!    The plantings outside were absolutely gorgeous (hope the photo can be enlarged).  This building also houses the Surry Arts Council (we are in Surry county) which seems to be very very active in the community, preserving the local arts and music ~ we still have not gotten to hear any of the music but I suspect Thursday will be the evening we do that but it is all subject to change!

Outside the Surry Arts Council building is the "Andy and Opie statue" ~ photo op with Sir's name on it of course!  And as usual, he was very apprehensive about the op, as if to say "seriously guys ... you want me to stand next to these strangers while you take my picture - I'm not so brave and such a tough guy right now!"

Remember in the show they often referred to traveling to Mount Pilot (as well as Raleigh)?  Well a neighboring town is Pilot Mountain ... which happens to have been a photo op for the bikes the other day when we rode over there, and were fortunate enough to take "the long way home".  Oh my gosh what great riding in these parts.  Lots and lots of open land with beautiful rolling hills - some far more "rolling" than others.  There is a state park there, but we didn't feel at all comfortable riding the bikes there, in fact Rick wouldn't have been comfortable in a car going up Pilot Mountain to the "knob".  I still may do it on my own (well with Sir) but we shall see.

And the last of the photos for this post is of the head stone for Eng and Chang Bunker.  They were the Siamese twins that traveled with Barnum's circus in the early to mid 1800's.  They settled here in Mt. Airy with their wives, produced 21 children between them (yet another post, a very interesting one in deed).

Our plan, as I'd mentioned before was to be here for three nights, which would have had us leaving last Saturday, but I've (we've) just fallen in love with the area so we extended until Monday, which will be extended yet again by at least one day, but we are having trouble once again with the company that does our medicines, so we will likely be here until the latest fiasco with them is resolved.  In addition to that I'm having issues with my doctor back in MA re-writing my prescriptions as she'd assured me in February that she'd do after more lab work was done in April when we were north for Chad and Amy's wedding. Now I find myself researching where to have the latest request for labs done, then waiting for meds to be renewed because of an error on the pharmacy's end .... all of which was good for a serious meltdown a couple hours ago.  I can't believe all this jumping through hoops foolishness ~ with all Rick's health issues he hasn't had to do this crap ~ frankly I'm ready to through in the towel and say the hell with the medicines altogether and just "wing it" ~ it just isn't worth it as far as I can see, between the chaos to get the flippin' 'scripts renewed and the seemingly constant errors with the "pharmacy" (Express Scripts).