We made a brief exit from the National Park campgrounds in order to visit the Fancy Gap area of the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is the area of Virginia where bluegrass music was born. Being a big fan of bluegrass and old-timey music, this was a must stop for me.
The Blue Ridge Music Center is located right on the parkway and is a really good museum devoted to the history of mountain music, specifically, bluegrass, old-timey, and gospel. In addition to the excellent exhibits, they host a daily jam session of any mountain musicians who care to participate. There was an old guy playing the banjo who had to have been 90 years old.
The rangers at the Music Center sent us to Galax, VA to hear some live bluegrass music. We had some of the best barbeque I've ever eaten at a place called The Smokehouse, followed by a concert at the Rex Theater. The Rex is an old fashioned movie house that has been converted into a concert hall. We heard a group called "The Zephyr Lightning Bolts" which had some wonderful musicians, but was a bit weak in the vocal department.
We took a daytrip to Mt Airy, NC. Remember Andy of Mayberry? Andy Griffith grew up in Mt Airy and "Mayberry" was based on it with many of the people and places being real. We were both fans of the show as children. The Andy Griffith Museum was interesting, if not very well organized. It's pretty amazing to think about the talent that came out of that show: Andy Griffith, of course, had a long career on the big and small screen, Ron Howard (Opie) is one of the best modern film directors, Don Knotts (Barney) was an amazing comedian, and Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle) had great success as a singer as well as an actor. The show had several spin-offs, and reamins popular on cable re-runs to this day.& One of the spin-offs was Gomer Pyle, USMC. Rick reports that when he was in the Marine Corps they were not very happy with that show and that you didn't dare make any Gomer Pyle jokes.
The weather has been really hot, although it's been tolerable at the higher elevations. Since Fancy Gap is a relatively low elevation, we stayed at a KOA campground in order to get an electric hook-up which allowed us to run our air conditioner. KOA campgrounds are kind of like the Holiday Inns of campgrounds: you know what you're getting, but it's not much. The sites were close together and uninteresting compared with the wonderful National Park sites that we've been frequenting recently. Although we enjoyed our activities in the area, we weren't sorry to leave.
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