Where have we been? We haven't fallen off the face of the earth, contrary to popular belief, we've just been on vacation! :)
Last Wednesday we left the 'Land of the Pines' to head up to Floyd, Virgina where we attended
Floydfest. This is a 4 day music festival that consists primarily of Bluegrass music, over the years they have added additional bands with similar genre's. This was the 11th year of the festival, but it was our first time at Floydfest (also our first music festival ever).
I always thought that growing up in Eastern North Carolina that I grew up in a rural area, I mean aside from fishing the majority of the town thrives on tourism from the summer months and is completely dead during the winter. When I came to Raleigh I was spoiled.... I had hundreds of restaurants, bars, and all the shopping a girl could dream of and I have realized that I took that for granted after this weekend. No sooner than we left Hillsborough, NC I began to see just how "rural" places can be and that even little ol' Morehead City has got it good.
Let me hit on the highlights of our traveling...
 |
| I guess it was too late to change my mind from 4 days without a bed, electricity, and any form of communication |
After driving a little over an hour we realized that we better stop and get a bite to eat since every town we came to had fewer and fewer restaurants. Yanceyville, NC was the pull over point when we saw a Wal Mart Express... what is that you might ask? It's a Walgreens/Rite Aid/CVS size Wal Mart and the best thing is that they actually had cart corals right outside the entrance, lol. We stopped and ate at Bojangles, nothing new here, BUT the employees in there were all SO nice and the whole place was SUPER clean. It was about 6 o'clock and we were one of two parties in the restaurant, the girl's were literally wiping down every chair, booth and table in the whole place. I would LOVE to see their faces if they were to work at the one on Western Blvd here in Raleigh on game day... they might fall over. I guess I was most shocked that their sign read "All U Can Eat Lunch M-F 11-2 $6.99" and it made T and I both do a double take... what Bojangles has an all you can eat lunch? We knew we weren't in Raleigh anymore...
 |
| Surprised. |
 |
| For those of you who haven't experienced Bojangles.... this is heaven... and also the best hangover cure in the |
We traveled through Martinsville, VA where the unemployment rate is 20.2%. Part of Martinsville is Bassett, where Bassett furniture was manufactured... and from the looks of it one would think it is a ghost town. There are several warehouses that look like they are barely used, vacant, and being pushed down. The Bassett furniture company was everything and I'm not sure if they moved their plants overseas or just shut down some factories but even the outlet center looked like an image from Jumaji (yes, I just referenced a movie from the early 90's) where things look like they were abandoned for decades and torn to pieces. It really was sad.
Fast forward about 20 minutes and the directions we received from google maps (no, we do not have a gps) was taking us the opposite ways of the roads we were supposed to be following or we didn't see the roads that it wanted us to turn on - we decided that we would follow the roads that we knew we were supposed to be taking and when we saw HWY 8 and the sign that pointed to Floyd... I almost peed my pants with excitement that we were not lost in BFE!
 |
| Notice "The Crooked Road Virginia Heritage Music Trail" sign? It's true... VERY survey road. |
 |
| There were LOTS of cows. |
 |
| I always get excited when I see the mountains - T rolls his eyes at me snapping a picture |
 |
| We went under the Blue Ridge Parkway - we never seem to have time to ride on it |
We arrived in Floyd, VA right on time, it took us about 3 hours to get there. The town was very cute, so cute that we were looking around and drove right through the whopping one mile town! We had to turn around to get back on the street we were supposed to have turned on to get to the hotel.
 |
| Lots of building with character |
Floydfest is very popular in Floyd.... most of these shops were shut down for the festival. (Of course, they were also shut down Sunday - Tuesday each week... rough life working Wednesday-Saturday's).
 |
| Here's Floyd (almost all of it) |
 |
| Quick snaps as we drive by |
 |
| This looked like a neat store - but it was closed when we got there Wednesday and didn't open on Monday when we returned) |
Wednesday night we stayed in Hotel Floyd, it was a pretty popular place that night.... I think everyone who stayed there was going to Floydfest.
 |
| Office |
 |
| Hotel - very small, but newer and clean |
We arrived about 30-45 minutes before the shuttles started running only to learn that they had been running for at least an hour and there was already a line to get to the festival!!
 |
| This is where I learned just how much stuff my Uncle brought with him!!! WAY MORE than anyone else. |
 |
| Bus + Trailer = ticket inside (you were not supposed to walk to/from the parking lot to the festival |
See the school bus below? the Wilksboro Boy Scout troops were there for transporting us to and from the four parking lots (Yes, Four HUGE lots) to the festival. Pretty much it was a mad dash to get your stuff all on a trailer and get into the same bus. The bus ride was only about 5 minutes to the festival. In case you are wondering - Floydfest typically has about 12,000-16,000 people there depending on the day (they sell day passes for Saturday and Sunday). We arrived early and parked in lot A, which was the largest of all the lots.... please see below, this isn't even half the lot in the picture.
 |
| Our car isn't even in the picture... way up on the hill to the right |
 |
| They put stickers on your car so you can't take a parking pass out of your car and bring in more cars (smart) |
There is A LOT to catch up on.... I'll let you know more about our trip tomorrow. I'll share the camping aspect, the bands, and what we learned about music festivals in the next couple of days.
On the bright side, I'm almost caught up on laundry!!!
