Mt. Airy, North Carolina is not only home to one of the most well-known Old-Time and Bluegrass festivals in the country, it’s also the birthplace of that piece of classic American television The Andy Griffith Show. Andy Griffith, you see, was born in Mt. Airy (in which his boyhood home still stands and is now available as an overnight rental) and modeled the fictional town of Mayberry and many of its inhabitants after the very real town and some of the locals that called it home.

And so it was, we arrived in Mayberry USA on an idyllic morning in early June, the sun shining on tree-lined roads as puffy white clouds drifted overhead. If you listened closely, you could almost hear the familiar whistle from the show’s theme song lilting from somewhere deep in the suburbs of Mt. Airy. We guided Cecil to the laundromat on the edge of town, fed our dirty laundry and some quarters into one of the machines, and I set off for a stroll while Ashley stayed behind to work on one of her many knitting projects.

Andy Griffith’s unassuming birthplace is just a few blocks away from the laundromat, so I wandered up the sloped sidewalk to get a closer look. Sure enough, there was a small house with a front porch that wouldn’t be out of place in any neighborhood from the 1950s. The sign in the yard cautioned gawking sightseers to respect the privacy of those staying in the house as it was an active vacation rental. I heeded those instructions and did not glance through the windows while feverishly snapping photos like some creepy Peeping Tom. Wasn’t there an episode of the show about that? Good ol’ Andy and his hapless deputy Barney Fife tracking down a man in a trench coat who couldn’t resist terrorizing the little old ladies of Mayberry by stealing the cooling pies from their windowsills? Maybe not.

No sooner did I start to walk away when I was approached by the sheriff’s police car taken directly from the set of The Andy Griffith Show. I thought, “Ah! So THIS is how you get to spend a night in the Mayberry jail!” before wondering what I had actually done to warrant a ride in the backseat. Luckily for me, the car was driven by a guide and filled with tourists glancing through the windows while feverishly snapping photos like a carload of creepy Peeping Toms. This is just one of the many show-related activities one can engage in when visiting Mayber-, I mean, Mt. Airy. My parents, in fact, chose to meet up with us later in the week and they took one of these police car tours. They enjoyed it, got to see the sights around town, and even learned a bit about the history of Mt. Airy in the process. Many of the historic buildings in town are built from a very specific type of white granite mined from a nearby quarry, which is a fact I wouldn’t be sharing right now had they not learned it while on this tour.

So I missed my big chance to spend a night in the Mayberry jail, but my dad on the other hand did not. See what happens when you have one too many moonshine cookies from Miss Angel’s Heavenly Pies on Main Street, made with moonshine distilled at Mayberry Spirits? My dad said the bunk was a little hard but at least the complimentary biscuit and gravy breakfast was a nice surprise. But don’t worry – you don’t have to break the law to get this photo-op for yourself (and neither did Dad – just in case you were concerned, Grandma). The town jail is open for tours and will likely be easily recognizable to any fans of the show.

But I’m getting ahead of myself – our laundry hasn’t even reached the rinse cycle yet. After narrowly averting a run-in with the fictional law, I made my way back down the hill to rejoin Ashley at the laundromat and stow our freshly-laundered clothes back in the RV. Our home for the next week was going to be Veterans Memorial Park, home of the Mt. Airy Fiddle Festival and the main reason we were in town, so we trundled through the city streets and pulled into the park. The festival organizers allow early arrivals (I think we rolled in on a Monday or Tuesday, with the actual festival not starting until Friday evening), so we paid our camping and festival fee (at the door only – no advance sales) and found a space in the expansive field. Not many RVs or tents had been set up yet, but that would all change by Friday afternoon. Our friends Ed and Theresa (whom we originally met in Savannah in 2017 and then met up with again at Fiddler’s Grove this year), arrived not long after us and we set up our respective camps about a stone’s throw apart. That’s an official fiddle festival measurement of distance in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. No one uses the measurement “within earshot of a banjo” because let’s face it – you can never get out of earshot of a banjo. That’s a little bluegrass humor for you. You’re welcome.

The main event at most of these types of festivals is the competition – whether individual instruments or full bands. But I’d wager that the majority of the attendees couldn’t care less about the competitions. Most people are there to jam for fun with any informal group they can find. This isn’t to say that the competitions aren’t entertaining – quite the opposite, because they feature some of the best musicians in the local area, if not the country, and provide hours of high-quality musicianship from expert-level performers. But speaking as a (fair to average) musician, I’d much rather be playing than listening to someone else play on most occasions, if given the choice between the two activities.

People arrive early to find a “good” camping spot and to play for fun before the crowds arrive for the official festival. With hundreds of small groups springing up all around the park, a musician of any skill level is likely to find a chance to play. This also means attendees will hear “Whiskey Before Breakfast” or “Old Joe Clarke” about 892 times each before the weekend is over, but you’ll also hear more new tunes than any non-genius could memorize or learn in such a short amount of time. I can scarcely get the title long enough to jot it down in my notebook, let alone learn the melody before the group is moving on to the next tune.

The Mt. Airy festival is much larger than the Fiddler’s Grove festival we experienced a couple of weeks prior. RVs poured in throughout the next few days, with people setting up next to one another like cows crowding around the feed trough. The park has plenty of space – I can only assume people like to be in close proximity in the rare event that a tornado passes through. Solidarity in numbers, and all that. People arrive in 40-foot motorhomes, conversion vans, ancient tents, and hatchbacks, all looking for a weekend filled with good music and like-minded companionship. While the park offers some official sites with electric and water hookups, the vast majority of visitors engage in dry camping, boondocking, “roughing it” – call it what you will. From what I gathered from other attendees, the hookup sites during the Fiddle Fest are reserved by the same people year after year and they have dibs unless they choose to give up the site for the following year. I can neither confirm nor deny this rumor because we weren’t in search of electricity anyway. We were prepared to rely on our solar and general electricity-conservation practices during our visit, with our generator available as an extreme back-up precaution. We did have a couple of rainy and overcast days, but the solar worked well enough during the six days or so at the festival.

A handful of workshops were scheduled on Saturday before the competitions, and I attended an Old Time circle featuring accomplished local musicians, as well as a “dance band” workshop in the afternoon. The musicians in the Old Time circle workshop played examples of regional songs and spoke about their teachers, the origins of the songs, and how this particular style of music was born in the hills of North Carolina. Decades of musical knowledge existed in the members of that circle – comprised of a wide age range of musicians – of which only the tiniest portion could be shared in an hour-long workshop. The musical tradition of Appalachia runs rich and deep and I can only imagine that a lifetime spent studying it would be immensely fulfilling.

The dance band workshop was open to anyone wishing to join, so I cautiously wandered into the hall later that day with mandolin case in hand and found a seat next to the only other person in the circle. We were soon joined by a few others, including acclaimed fiddler and author Erynn Marshall who lead the dance band, as well as her husband, the songwriter and guitarist Carl Jones. A caller (whose name I missed, sorry about that) gathered dancers from the audience and taught a few basic steps before Erynn launched into a traditional dance tune. The main role of the mandolin in old time music is to provide the rhythm, similar to the drummer in a rock band or the bassist in a jazz group. This is fortunate for me because I do not yet possess the technical speed to keep up with the blisteringly fast melodies, nor do I have the encyclopedic volume of tunes embedded in memory like so many of these musicians do. I happily chopped along with the chords throughout the rest of the workshop, stealing a glance at Carl Jones’s chord hand on the guitar every now and then when I needed help on an unfamiliar chord progression (thankfully the tunes share similar progressions in general, so if you know one you probably know about a hundred more).

This simple act of playing in a band of musicians, most of whom had never played together before, while a bunch of strangers danced around with big smiles on their faces was the biggest highlight of the festival for me. The days of barn dances and porch front jams may slowly be slipping even further into obscurity (and I’ll firmly place the blame on the intrusion of television and now the added distraction of the internet), but the shared sense of community and human connection couldn’t be overlooked in this hour-long dance band workshop. I can’t help but imagine the good that might result if all of us could put down our remotes and our smartphones, pick up an instrument or lace up our dancing shoes, and join our neighbors on the closest porch a couple of times a week.

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Mt. Airy is a town in transition. While the fame of the fictional land of Mayberry may continue to attract visitors, the true charm of a small town stuck in the 1950s is diminishing with each passing decade. You can stroll Main Street and wander into the Mayberry Soda Fountain for a giant malted milkshake or grab a seat at Snappy’s Lunch (the only real Mt. Airy business ever mentioned by name during the eight-year run of The Andy Griffith Show) and order a pork chop sandwich. But the old guard locals will lament the decline in quality and size of said sandwich while still clinging to the nostalgia of yesteryear. Younger residents raising families in Mt. Airy are desperately seeking to breathe new life into their quaint town, as can be seen in the new restaurants and even breweries – GASP! – springing up on side streets. Mt. Airy is no longer the idyllic town frozen in time as referenced in The Andy Griffith Show – and what remains of that fictional Pleasantville is merely window dressing for the tourists – but the down-home charm recreated in the show remains in spirit.

Ashley and I had lunch at Mi Casa, one of the newer restaurants in town owned and operated by a young couple with a growing family. We sat at the bar and shared a cocktail with our food while the owner working the bar offered me samples of beers from one of the local breweries. I don’t think Mayberry had a Mexican-American restaurant serving delicious tacos and well-crafted cocktails from a fully-stocked bar. We later wandered over to the White Elephant Brewery, as recommended by the owner at Mi Casa as well as the people at Sanders Ridge Winery (from our previous post). White Elephant is located on Market Street, which is one block behind and runs parallel to Main Street, but where you won’t find kitschy faux-nostalgia shops or any references to Andy Griffith. Well, that’s not entirely true – the show was actually playing on the TV behind the bar when we arrived but that turned out to be a coincidence rather than a premeditated choice of entertainment.

If you never wandered from the very short Market Street, you could possibly pretend you were in a tiny suburb of Denver. One end of the street is home to recently renovated high-end townhomes, and a handful of small boutique shops line the sidewalk. And let’s not forget that you’ll find both Mt. Airy breweries located on Market just a few doors apart from each other. While we preferred the beer at White Elephant, their offerings are skewed more toward higher alcohol IPAs and imperial stouts. Thirsty Souls Brewery features a more approachable tap list (as far as ABV is concerned) and has a kitchen available during the week. White Elephant doesn’t serve food, but they do encourage you to bring in food from other neighborhood restaurants. Thirsty Souls also hosts and organizes a First Friday event through the warmer months putting their outdoor space to good use. I wanted to attend the weekly Old Time jam at White Elephant, but we discovered upon our arrival that the people who host it were likely at the Fiddler’s Festival and wouldn’t be appearing that week. Oh well – my parents were in town so they grabbed food from a restaurant around the corner and joined us for a beer at White Elephant before wandering over to Thirsty Souls later that night. Visitors in search of decent craft beer can’t go wrong on Market Street in Mt. Airy.

The Surry Arts Council hosts a weekly Thursday night bluegrass jam at the historic Earle Theater on Main Street, so we made plans to attend while in town. Veterans Memorial Park is located along the bike trail which runs into Mt. Airy, so we had a convenient route to travel to and fro during the day. The trail technically closes at dusk, so we piled into my parents’ car when we all decided to head into town at night. We made the trip that evening to the Earle Theater and found seats in the auditorium surrounded by larger than life photos of well-known local musicians spanning the decades. I came prepared with my mandolin, since the event is billed as an “open jam” and I would potentially have a chance to play.

The group of musicians on stage obviously knew each other and the guitarist leading the jam called each one up to the mic by name in order throughout the night. He never really invited anyone from the audience to join, but I also didn’t make any attempt on my own to enter the jam. Now that I’ve been to multiple jams or open mic nights, I like to observe on my first visit and then have a better idea of what to do should I go back in the future. This is partly because I’m not completely confident playing the mandolin or singing, but also because I’d rather fit in more easily with a group than barge in with a saxophone at an acoustic bluegrass jam. (Note: a saxophone is not a typical bluegrass instrument just in case you didn’t know, although Eddie Barbash from the house band led by Jon Baptiste formerly on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been doing his best to prove otherwise while recently playing with Sierra Hull.) Bluegrass and jazz are more similar than they might appear as forms of improvised music, but that’s a topic for another post.

We sat through the “concert” which was certainly enjoyable, then I picked up my mandolin as we made our way out of the theater. I was approached by an older gentleman just before reaching the door.

“What’s in the case, young fella?”

“Oh, it’s a mandolin,” I replied, holding it up a bit as though that would help him see through the hard plastic case with his superpower of x-ray vision.

“Well why weren’t you up there on stage?” he asked with a hint of belligerence.

Not exactly sure where his questions were leading or how he was involved with the theater or the jam, I supplied what I hoped were diplomatic responses.

“Well, it’s my first time at the jam and we’re in town for the Fiddler’s Festival so I thought we’d stop by to check it out,” I answered with a slight smile (which is always a surefire charm only for the older lady crowd – but does abosutely nothing for a gruff, overall-clad possible farmer).

“You shoulda been up there! I woulda liked to hear you play!”

“Oh, well I wasn’t sure if it was open to anyone or if you had to sign up ahead of time but I’ll be back the next time we pass through town!” I quickly supplied as my excuse.

“I hope so,” he said before turning away with a nod of his head.

I continued walking to the theater exit when I head him exclaim, “I’m going to fire you!” directed at the guitarist leading the jam. “Why aren’t you telling people to come up and play?”

I made a hasty retreat to the sidewalk. The matter-of-fact older gentleman wasn’t actually going to fire the guitarist (I hope), but I gathered that he was the one to organize the weekly event and wanted the guitarist to run it like an open jam as intended. The next time we’re in Mt. Airy on the Earle Theater jam night, I’ll crack open my case and saunter up to join the group on stage.

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My parents spent their nights in Mt. Airy at the Mayberry Motor Inn, which is a fairly typical motel along a well-traveled highway. This particular motel, of course, has a couple of Andy Griffith-era vehicles in the parking lot, as well as one room dedicated to Aunt Bee and the real-life woman who brought the character to life – Frances Bavier. The Motor Inn is owned by Alma Venable who decided to start her “Aunt Bee” collection after Bavier’s passing in 1990. The room is now packed to the brim with Griffith memorabilia and the inn owners encourage visitors to sneak a peek through the window for a glimpse into Mayberry. You may even get a personalized tour of the room if you ask politely in the small motel office.

If you’re looking for a decent breakfast while in town, my parents recommend Brenda’s Country Kitchen over Aunt Bea’s Barbecue (where breakfast is served all day, and the “a” in Bea is intentional – not to be confused with Aunt Bee from Mayberry). Ashley and I didn’t visit either restaurant, but my parents report that Brenda’s felt more welcoming and is likely a locals spot, plus the quality of the food was simply better there.

The four of us ate lunch at the Loaded Goat in downtown Mt. Airy, named after an infamous episode of The Andy Griffith Show in which a goat is not full of moonshine and harassing the townsfolk, but instead has consumed an amount of – well, maybe I’ll just let you look it up on your own because I’d hate to ruin the plot of the show for you. (Side note – we’ve been in Pennsylvania for most of the summer and my dad saved this particular episode for us to watch before we hit the road again, but we have yet to see the entire episode). The Loaded Goat has typical sports pub-type food with a small bar area, including a decent selection of craft beers and ever-present glasses of sweet tea (or just “tea” as it is always assumed to be sweet south of the Mason-Dixon, apparently). It’s a friendly neighborhood veteran-owned spot with familiar, comforting food and looks like a potential hub of activity on certain nights of the week – wing night, karaoke, etc.

Ashley and I genuinely enjoy a decent coffee shop, and she would likely choose that location as her preferred space to work on knitting projects and patterns. So we wandered in to Pages Books and Coffee on Main Street to check it out. It immediately reminded me of the Borders bookstore I used to visit in high school, only on a much smaller scale. The book selection was limited and the coffee was average, but it’s pretty much the only coffee shop in town. While it doesn’t hold the particular allure or coffee quality of Folklore in Elizabethtown PA, Hooked on Colfax in Denver CO, or Dirty Joe’s in nearby Elkin NC, Pages fits the bill for a neighborhood gathering place but not necessarily the “coffee shop” experience. Mt. Airy is home to Brady’s Coffee and Donuts, which is a mobile coffee business with an open-air location just outside of town, but we didn’t manage to fit a stop there into our visit although it was on our loose itinerary.

If you’ve followed along with the blog since we started in the beginning of 2017, you’ve probably noticed that we’re not big shoppers. We don’t really buy little knick-knacks during our travels, nor do we simply shop just for the fun of it. Our spending vice is certainly slanted toward dining and imbibing, especially craft breweries and small wineries. But Ashley does love a good clothing consignment or thrift store. So when we walked past Lola Consignment on Franklin Street (connecting the shops and restaurants on Main to the “hipper” yet much smaller section of shops and breweries on Market), Ashley decided to peruse their wares. She actually visited twice during our time in Mt. Airy and found a few items of clothing, which she took special care to inform me that her most favorite item found at Lola is a pair of blue and white shorts with a tropical floral design.

If you have even the slightest interest in exploring bluegrass, Old Time, and traditional Appalachian string music in a festival setting, the Mt. Airy Fiddler’s Festival would be an excellent place to start. It’s small enough to not be immediately overwhelming while drawing a diverse crowd, offers space for both non-hookup RV parking and tent camping, and is conveniently located close to a small town with plenty of restaurants, little shops, and sightseeing to keep visitors occupied for a few days. Book a room early if you’d like to stay in town during the festival, and keep an eye on the dates for the annual Mayberry Days event which is another crowd-drawing spectacle (the Fiddle Fest and Mayberry Days do not coincide). The Fiddle Festival organizers arrange a free shuttle running into town from Veterans Memorial Park later in the week, which is a convenient way to get back and forth if you don’t mind waiting around for a ride. But the trail is just as quick if you want some exercise and the weather cooperates. But if you really want to ride in style, book a tour in the sheriff’s cruiser and get the inside scoop on all the small town gossip in Mayberry, USA. Just try to avoid spending a night behind bars at the town jail.