Interstate highways are great for RV travel if you are just going from Point A to Point B. They are usually the quickest way to get where you’re going, but they lack any charm or character, so whenever possible, we love to travel the back roads, those two lane highways that take you through the small towns where you can see the real America.

Of course, some of the best adventures are found on back roads where an RV isn’t the most practical form of transportation. When we find a nice place to park for a few days, we leave the motorhome and go exploring in our van.

Mayberry Campground here in Mount Airy makes an excellent base for doing just that. The campground is very clean, has roomy full hookup pull-through and back-in sites with cable TV and WiFi, and the folks who run it are very friendly.

The campground’s owner, Benny East, is a great great grandson of Eng Bunker, one of the famous Siamese Twins, who settled in this area after a career touring in vaudeville. The twins died in 1874 and are buried a mile away, and yesterday we paid a visit to their gravesite.

Since we had played tourist in town on Tuesday, we wanted a change of pace yesterday. We set off down some narrow back roads where I’d never take an RV larger than a Class B van.

At the tiny village of Rockford, we stopped to check out the Rockford General Store, which has been serving the community since 1890. What a neat place! This cigar store Indian greeted us at the front door, and inside the owner welcomed us like long lost family members.

We loved looking at all of the things on display, from bulk candy to gourds, and after poking around in every corner of the store we had worked up an appetite. The store serves up delicious sandwiches that you’ll never find at McDonald’s or Burger King. I had the fried country ham and egg, and Miss Terry tried the thick cut pan fried bologna and cheese. Both were wonderful! We sat on rocking chairs on the front porch and passed the time of day with a local gentleman as we ate our lunches.

When we left Rockford, we meandered down a series of roads that crossed the Yadkin River several times, and eventually brought us to the Horne Creek Living Historical Farm, which was farmed by the Hauser family for nearly 200 years.

Since we visited in the off season, there were no costumed interpreters working on the farm, as there are other times of year, depicting farm life in rural North Carolina circa 1900.

We still had a good time wandering around the farm and the handsome two story house where several generations of Hausers lived and died. Terry and I always say that if we did not have to work, we’d love to spend some time volunteering as costumed interpreters at historic sites. Even adults like to play dress up!
Pilot Mountain, rising 1,400 feet above the surrounding countryside, is a major landmark in this region, and long before we had highways and GPS systems, explorers and settlers used it to navigate their way through the wilderness.

We have had a fantastic time exploring the upper Piedmont plateau of North Carolina, and we could easily spend a couple more weeks here. But we have lots more to see and do, and today we’ll be on the road again, heading for new territory in search of new adventures.

Thought For The Day – If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?

After a chilly night in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Gallipolis, Ohio, we were up bright and early yesterday morning. There were several things we wanted to see locally, so I went inside the store and obtained permission to leave our motorhome there for a couple of hours while we went exploring in the van.

Gallipolis was settled in the late 1700s by French aristocrats who fled the old country to escape the guillotine. It is the hometown of Bob Evans, founder of the Bob Evans Restaurant chain, and the family farm is now a tourist attraction that includes an RV park offering water and electric hookups and a dump station for $15/night.

While exploring the friendly community, we noticed several back in RV sites with water and electric hookups at a Public Access boat launch on the bank of the Ohio River downtown. I stopped at City Hall to ask about the sites, and learned that RVers passing through the area can stay either for free, for $10 a night, or for $25 a night, depending on which secretary you want to believe. For free or $10 a night, I’d stay a while just to watch the riverboats going by, but for $25 a night, I’d pass.

This trip it didn’t matter, because we had a lot of miles to cover yet. We crossed the river on the Silver Memorial Bridge, and I think I may be getting over my bridge phobia, because I didn’t snivel once. The original Silver Bridge here collapsed in 1967, throwing 70 cars into the river below and claiming 46 lives. Maybe I’m not over my phobia after all, and I just figured lighting wouldn’t strike twice in the same place.

On the West Virginia side of the river, Point Pleasant is a charming little town with enough to see and do to keep visitors busy for several days. In 1774, a force of Virginia militia was ambushed here by Shawnee and Mingo Indians and the fierce battle lasted for hours. In the end, 75 militiamen were killed, along with an estimated 33 Indians. Many consider this to be the first battle of the American Revolution. Today a small park on the riverfront where the battle took place includes an 84 foot high granite obelisk honoring the men who fought and died here.

Point Pleasant also has a place in paranormal history. Here, in 1966, a strange winged man-like creature that became known as Mothman was reportedly sighted. Since then there have been several reported sightings of the creature, usually before disasters. Several people claimed to see Mothman perched high in the girders of the original Silver Bridge before it collapsed. Since then, Mothman has become a worldwide phenomenon, with mention in documentary films, movies and television specials.

Sure, it’s probably just the figment of imaginations gone wild, but the folks in Point Pleasant took it serious enough to erect a state of Mothman on Main Street downtown, and there is a Mothman Museum just across the street.

With our sightseeing over, we returned to Gallipolis, picked up the motorhome, and crossed the river again. On the Ohio side of the river, U.S. Highway 35 had been a very nice divided four lane, but  a couple of miles into West Virginia, it dropped down to a two lane road with no shoulders, and lots of curves for maybe 25 miles, and then it became divided four lane again.

Before long we joined Interstate 64 and followed it east a few miles into Charleston, where we picked up Interstate 77 south past the gold domed State Capitol building. Traffic was pretty heavy in Charleston, but before long we put the city behind us, and Interstate 77 became the West Virginia Turnpike.

For the next hundred miles we climbed up and around one mountain after another, the Winnebago doing just fine. I can’t believe the power this thing has! The constant climbing did affect our fuel mileage, though. The day before, we averaged 8.1 miles per gallon across relatively flat Indiana and Ohio, according to the Silverleaf, and yesterday our average was right at 7 miles per gallon.

It cost $10.50 in tolls to travel from Charleston to the state line, but I don’t think they spend much of that money on highway improvements, because that was one rough road in many places!

We crossed into Virginia, stopped for fuel at the T/A truck stop in Wytheville, and in less than an hour we arrived at Mayberry Campground in Mount Airy, North Carolina.  

Mount Airy is the hometown of television star Andy Griffith, and the picturesque town was the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry in the old Andy Griffith show.

Andy and his trusty deputy Barney Fife probably wouldn’t recognize the old town these days. It has a Wal-Mart Super Center, Staples Office Supply, Golden Corral Buffet, Lowes, and other major stores and restaurants.  Unfortunately, crime has come to Mayberry. The day before we arrived, a gunman killed four men in a shooting a few blocks from Main Street.

This is a beautiful area, with a lot to see and do, and we’ll be here a few days before we head on down the road. I’ll have a lot to share with you in tomorrow’s blog, so stay tuned. 

Thought For The Day – Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic.

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