Where's Liz? 2014: Booker T. Washington and Andy Griffith

There were two "points of interest" along our route that Donna and I stopped at on our way to Florida. The first was Booker T. Washington's birthplace near Roanoke, Virginia.

Best known as the founder of Tuskegee Institute, Washington wrote about his childhood in his autobiography, Up From Slavery.

This is a photo of the cabin where he was born and lived in slavery. It has been reconstructed on its original site.

The reconstructed cabin. The slave owners' house was very close…right across the dirt path in front of the cabin, just a few steps away.

A peek inside the cabin where Washington slept on the floor with his siblings.

The "Big House" has not been reconstructed, but you can see the outline of its foundation from the doorway of the cabin.

The plantation owners, the Burroughs family, are buried in the family cemetery on the property.

A picture of the "big house." It was from this front porch in 1865 that the Emancipation Proclamation was read to the joyful slaves. Booker was 9 years old.

This is a living-history plantation meant to replicate what life was like in the 1860s. Farm animals used for food and farm work are seen in their natural settings. This pasture has sheep and horses.

Looking toward the barns.

Pig pens

With pigs in residence.

Chicken, duck, and turkey lot.

Hen yard

Duck pond

Turkey pen

Horse barn

A view of the slave cabin from the barn area.

The plantation's only cash crop was tobacco.

A small tobacco patch is growing.

Tobacco barn

Vegetable garden

There were other trails that we did not take the time to walk, but this was a very well-done exhibit and well worth the stop. The Visitor Center had a museum and a film about Booker T. Washington's life and accomplishments.

The other stop we made was in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, Andy Griffith's home town and the town that was the model for "Mayberry" in TV's "Andy Griffith Show."

Coincidentally we happened to arrive the weekend they celebrate "Mayberry Days."

We visited the museum which cover's Andy Griffith's entire life and career, not just Mayberry.

There were photo ops in the foyer,

but no photos allowed inside the museum itself. Donna posed next to Goober,

Next we walked down Main Street of "Mayberry" (Mt. Airy) which takes full advantage of its fame to promote tourism. Tours were available in the patrol cars, but we didn't do that.