Hey Ya'll! Hope your week has been great! Mine? Great! This last weekend my photography club the Goldsboro Area Photography Club had its monthly Workshop/Photo trip. We have some sort of workshop or photowalk monthly to pair with our monthly meeting topic if possible. We get the ideas for our trips and workshops from critiques that we pass out at the end of the year asking questions about how to improve our club and one of the questions is where would you like to go or what type of workshop would you like to attend.  The Mount Airy/Pilot Mountain had been on a few critiques in the last couple of years and the club had never been to it so we decided to try it out this year. Spoiler Alert! It was a hit and we had a ball. So why is this small North Carolina foothills town worth a two and a half hour drive to get to? If you grew up in the US in 60's and 70's you definitely know about the TV show Mayberry RFD starring Andy Griffith . This show depicted a small southern town in the 1950's and 60's with its Sheriff "Andy" with its main character. A single father with Opie his young son played by Ron Howard who was famous for his 1970's hit "Happy Days" and later became a director and won an Academy , Emmy's, and even a Grammy and many more awards. The backdrop for this great show was the little town Mayberry which was modeled after Andy Griffiths childhood home town of Mount Airy. If you haven't seen Mayberry RFD you can still find it in re-runs still showing on TV it was that good of a show! Still showing 50 years later. Now about our trip.

As I said earlier we had quite a drive to get to our first destination of Mount Airy. So we left at 7 in the morning with a small caravan heading to Mayberry. LOL  Now that might seem like a long way to go for a day trip but I would say that sometimes the drive to and back from the trip are as much fun as the workshop/photowalk itself. You get to talk to fellow photographers and friends and catch up on what they are doing and what they are thinking. It seems like when we get back together we all become silly like when we were kids in summer camp. We just can't help ourselves. On the way up we stopped at an overlook that shows the road to Pilot Mountain with the mountain looming in the background. It was just a one shot stop but it was enough to get our photography juices flowing. We made it to Mount Airy and arrived at the Andy Griffith Playhouse and found parking. Now this is a small town so anywhere you park you're only a few blocks away from anything.

We walked to the main street in town which of course was named "Main" street and the street is lined with specialty shops and eateries. Everything "Mayberry" from Floyds barbershop to Opie's candy store. Even a little restaurant called "Barneys" (who was Andy's Deputy Sheriff) . There are lots of cool murals painted all over town and it is a very cool town to photograph. There are old patrol cars that you can take a ride in and I even saw a trolley that would take you around town. We stayed on foot checking out all of the sites and peeking into shops along the way to get the souvenir or two. We had lunch at Barneys. I had a Barney burger special which was great! There is a ice cream shop that some of our members took part in while everyone kind of spread out and took photo's.

After awile we decided to start our way back home which meant a stop at Pilot Mountain State Park. Pilot mountain is a distinctive rocky knob that rises 200 feet from a forested base. This unique looking peak is very photogenic. We stopped and got our photo's of this rocky knob then headed to the visitor center to learn about the area and of course get more souvenirs . LOL We then headed back home with a stop at a 7-11 convince store to get a Slurpee for the ride home. Which is starting to be a thing. LOL 

We had a great time shooting and exploring this little tourist town of days gone by.  Consider joining a local photography club for outings and fun workshops and a chance to meet people who are like minded and love to have fun. Until next week! Get Out and Shoot!