We spent a few days up in Mt. Airy for their Mayberry Days! This is the birthplace and growin' up town of Andy Griffith! I learned from my dad long ago that when you visit a place, you want to study up on it first so you can enjoy it. So we did our duty and watched almost the entire third season of the Andy Griffith Show before coming, and that really did make it SO fun for all of us!
Standing by Floyd's Barber shop- you can get haircuts for $8, but Jim didn't want to risk it :-)
Right before we went in for dinner at Barney's Diner. This was one of my favorite places to eat, they were SO friendly! All the folk up here have an accent just like Andy, and for some reason that good southern accent makes me feel right at home. There were not many kids at the festival, so ours got lots of attention (which they LOVED!)
We also ate at the Blue Bird Diner, another spot named from the show. What probably surprised me most about this town is that it felt like downtown Apex. Seriously. The same low-key, small town feel of our one block downtown was what Mayberry's two blocks felt like as well. Most the shops close early just like ours too. It seems like our last two vacations we discovered that where we live is just as good as a vacation, we are so blessed!
The kids favorite- by far- place to dine was where Andy Griffith worked as a boy. I believe it used to be a pharmacy and now has ice cream and sandwiches. The man serving ice cream has lived there all his life and had stories to tell about who came in last night and what's going on in town. Seemed just like a small town and we enjoyed it!
The first day we were there it poured rain so most everything was cancelled or sent indoors. This made it a little hard, but between indoor museums and watching endless Nick Jr in our hotel, we survived until the rain stopped in the afternoon. The Andy Griffith Museum cost $3 a person and was not really worth it, although it had some original stuff (the sherriff's desk, Barney's chair, Barney's "dressing up" suit, etc). Pictures aren't allowed past the entrance, but they do allow photos with this sidecar so Nicole put on the hat and they loved pretending they were driving.
Jacob full speed ahead!
In the downstairs of their Playhouse (just like the Halle Cultural Arts Center in our downtown-see I told you it was similar!) they had bottle cap checkers set up. The photographer for the festival came and took photos of our kids and took our names. I'm guessing with the pouring rain there wasn't much else going on. You can see the rain on Michael. We'll check in a few days and see if we made the photo gallery on the website :-)
At 10am on Friday they had the Mayor's opening announcement. Our kids lasted a few minutes, but we were there early and got autographs from a ton of impersonators for Barney, Otis, Andy, etc. The kids just ate it up! Michael couldn't get enough of Barney and whenever we wanted Michael's attention we'd point out Barney and he'd pay attention. Nicole had fun when Floyd the Barber pretended he was going to cut her hair!
Random cow photo up. Nicole took this picture and I was so impressed that we were all in it!
Nicole took a picture of Floyd after she almost got a haircut!
TV Land donated this statue, a nice bronze from those opening credits with the whistling.
The rain left behind plenty of mud and puddles. What started out as a clean outfit became covered in mud in the sequence shown below.
Rolling down hills.
Jumping in mud puddle. We didn't stop him because after all of the rain and indoor time, he needed a little outlet and since the puddle was on concrete he wasn't ruining the grass. Ideal setting :-)
When driving to Mt Airy we took a detour to Virginia (in Jim's defense the directions weren't clear) but made it back the three miles to North Carolina and Mt. Airy.
Nicole has charge of her preschool class fish this weekend. The class calls it DaVinci, but Nicole told me she changed the name to Cupcake. We found a fun park by the "Duck Pond" (remember from the show?) and played ball, fed the ducks, fished and played at the park.
A picture from our walk to the dock of the pond. We saw a huge fish jump, but didn't catch anything.
Of course, Jim didn't have much time to fish with chaos going on like this.
We went back to the ice cream parlor the next day and Jacob ate an ice cream cone. It was so cute to see his excitement and discovery of how fun it is to lick that ice cream!
Nicole and Michael again ordered the "Krazy Kolors" ice cream. The ice cream looks like play dough the colors are so bright! Everyone in the shop was enjoying watching the kids eat. Michael especially was so excited and his joyful personality combined with Nicole's laughter just took over the shop and had everyone smiling and talking to us. Good times!
Jim had a malt the first evening and a banana split the second. He says the malt was amazing.
There was a mirror behind the counter so the kids kept looking at themselves while eating. This is a relatively clean shot, they had it on their mouths and noses too.
Saturday morning we went to the parade and got some balloons from the state farm bear. Michael gave the bear a big hug but didn't want to go back for a photo.
Waiting for the parade! We sat at the very tail end of the parade- that way we were close to the train ride, inflatables, live music and bbq instead of in the crowds on main street.
I think their name was the Fire Cloggers. They ended their show with all of the ladies held up in the air!
Margaret Kerry, the reference actor/model for Tinkerbell who also was on the Andy Griffith Show.
I love the license plate on this squad car. Name the author of that quote? Barney of course!
The lady standing up was the actor that played "Charlene Darling" from the popular episodes with the Darling family. We had just watched this so it was so fun to see her!
There was a lot of entertainment going on in the theater and playhouse. The kids were too young to sit still for it and we didn't want to pay for that hassle, but this was the Elvis impersonator they have.
This is Bruce Bilson, the assistant director for the show.
A whole passel of old automobiles were in the parade too. (like my vocabulary?)
Don Knotts daughter had a show too!
The Potato Queen (not sure how this was awarded)
Opie look-alike
The main impersonators- really fun and friendly. All of these people knew their lines too! When Jim asked Riscoe to play his jug, he responded "I can get banjo sounds, guitar sounds, whatever I want out of it" and kept on going alongside the marching band. 
The actor who played Gomer was there too, he was really popular!
This dad and his boy made a go cart squad car and the boy was all dressed up like a deputy.
The Little Blue Choo train was Michael's dream come true! The driver drove like a maniac we discovered later, but he knew what he was doing and it was so fun to go and hear some history.
The Pickle Queen. We haven't seen the episode with Aunt Bee's pickles yet...
And a random McDonald's float ended the parade.
Betty Lynn, the actor who played Thelma Lou was there- she actually lives in Mt. Airy.
A band playing music like the Darlin family. I have some video of that below.
The Little Blue Choo Train was near the tail of the parade and as soon as the parade ended we were in line! We got on the first ride and had a blast!
When we came to a steep hill, the driver had us all chant "I think I can" and Nicole really got into it. The driver told everyone that if we believe we can do something we can accomplish anything. A nice little motivational speech!
We walked down the block to these inflatables set up for the kids. There were just a handful of other kids, so it was really fun and relaxed!
Nicole and Michael loved this inflatable the most because it was so high! We spent an hour here and most of that was going up and down this slide :-)
Jacob wandered around all of the different inflatables and toys, checking out the different toys. He also didn't like playing anywhere by himself- he was always in search of kids to play with.
We finished our trip listening to a live band while eating pulled pork sandwiches from the champions of the pulled pork contest. The contestants were cooking all night long and were judged this morning. SO good!Here's some video of the parade, concerts, and other fun. Enjoy! http://delbifamily.blogspot.com/
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