Byrd’s Campground Elkin, NC
Staying at Byrd’s campground was very nice. Small campground, great host and we had a wonder site. There were other GD campers, it felt homey. We had a field next to our site and lots of cows lazying around it in the afternoon. The younger ones would run down the hill late in the day, like kids that just got out of school.
View from the camp site
We hiked Stone Mountain loop, about 5 miles, in Stone Mountain State Park. It was a great hike! Pretty steep ascent, switchback and then cables along the rock face, not bad in this dry weather. We traversed the ridge, with views along the way till we reached the top 200 foot Stone Mountain Waterfall. Lots and lots of wooden steps down, with waterfall views along the way.
After a while, we came to Hutchinson’s Homestead, recently restored farm from mid 1800’s. There were farm buildings, machinery, boards with details of life on the farm. Though it was in a beautiful location, living there must have been hard.
The 600 foot granite cliff above the farm is a favorite place for local climbers. Seeing it towering above the farmstead was quite dramatic.
Next day we did a local hike to a series of waterfalls, Carter Falls, right from the campground. My Seek app is getting a full workout, identifying local flowers (or weeds) and trees. One guy we met on the trail pointed out that iPhone photo has similar capability but I noticed that it is not as detailed as Seeks,. Highly recommend it if you like that sort of stuff.
We visited Elkin’s historic district, it has wine bars, stores and restaurants. The area has over 30 wineries, one you can walk to from the campground, 1.5 miles. There was no opportunity to do wine tasting, all is closed early in the week, so I sampled local beer with some roasted beet salad at Southern on Main.
Quick note about Bean’s BBQ - we had leftovers from it for couple of meals, including carnitas quesadilla and jambalaya (got couple of andouille sausages from them). If you in the area, stop by.
Now, off to South Carolina.
