Andy's Riverside NC

08/27/2026

Sept Stay Special!!!!

Come try out the new stairs into the river!

These dates are already booked:
Sept 4-7
Sept 11-13
Sept 18-22
Sept 26-Oct 3

[email protected]

07/30/2026

New photos of a happy place!!!

06/29/2026

06/23/2026

In a bend of a mountain road in Valle Crucis, Watauga County, a general store has been open since 1883. 🏪 The original Mast General Store -- the one that's been there since before anyone in the county could have imagined the 20th century, much less the 21st -- is one of those places that makes you feel like time has done something complicated and imprecise in that particular spot.

For generations, the store was the center of the Valle Crucis community in the way that only a true general store can be. You could buy flour and feed and fabric and farm tools. You could pick up your mail and hear the local news. During the Depression, when cash was scarce everywhere, the store ran a barter system -- accepting produce, eggs, and crafts in exchange for goods, keeping the community economically connected when money itself had become unreliable. The store holds a record of nearly every transaction it ever conducted.

The store is still there. Still selling dry goods and locally made items and the kind of candy that comes in barrels. Still on the National Register of Historic Places. Still, somehow, in operation after more than 140 years -- a survivor from an era when a mountain community's entire economy might flow through a single set of doors. The Watauga County mountains kept their secrets well. This one they let stay in plain sight. 🍬

06/14/2026

The Confluence - where the South Fork meets the North Fork of the New River, close to Crumpler, just south of Virginia border.

06/14/2026

The Confluence . . . where the South Fork of the New River meets the North Fork in Crumpler, shortly before the Virginia border.

06/13/2026

New stairs look great!

06/11/2026

Sooooo excited to get stairs leading into the river today!!!

Original owners had very large rocks installed 20 years ago. Hurricane Helene washed away absolutely everything that was at the shore including the giant rocks and all the trees.

I'm going to plant some trees along the water in the fall. I want to swing a hammock between 2 trees!

05/30/2026

True story!