On Friday morning I continued north to Mount Airy, NC. This is the town where Andy Griffith grew up, and it has many Mayberry-themed attractions for tourists. There's an Andy Griffith museum, with a statue of Andy and Opie going fishing; you can also see Floyd's barber shop, Wally's service station, the Sheriff's office, and Walker's soda fountain.
NASCAR references abound in NC and Virginia. Here's a look at the Martinsville, VA, speedway. One town, named for Confederate General Jeb Stuart, had a street named for the Wood Brothers NASCAR team. I've also passed near the track at Charlotte and the old one at North Wilkesboro.
In the afternoon, I saw the Appomattox Court House national historic site. In the McLean House, Lee surrendered to Grant, effectively ending the War Between the States. The house and room (as well as the remnants of the little stagecoach town) are kept as close to their condition on that day as possible. There's a little cemetery nearby where 15 soldiers (mostly Confederate) who died in the days before the surrender are buried.
In Lexington, Virginia, the campuses of Virginia Military Institute and Washington & Lee University sit side-by-side. Stonewall Jackson taught at VMI, and Lee became the president of then Washington College after the war. He's buried in a beautiful crypt in the Lee Chapel on campus. I was an hour too late to go inside.
At a rest area stop in the Shenandoah Valley, I got a beautiful shot of the Virginia mountains.
