Backroad Bulletin: April Events 🐣
Celebrate daffodils, cook with kids, enjoy regional tunes, and honor forgotten Blue Ridge families this month
Spring is in full bloom and so are events across the Southeast. We’ve highlighted some of the best places and events to check out as you hit the backroads this month. Be sure to check each website for details before you head out.
Mule Day
April 3-6, 2025
Columbia, Tennessee
This week-long event that began in 1840 as a “Breeder’s Day,” event for mule breeders now brings over 200,000 people to Columbia. Attendees will see plenty of mules and enjoy Appalachian food, music, dancing, crafts, and more. Events include a beauty pageant, craft faiar, dog show, feed time race, Bluegrass festival, parade, mule pulling contest, and more.
Daffodil Festival 2025
April 5-6, 2025
Gloucester, Virginia
The 39th Annual Daffodil Festival offers a weekend of live entertainment, food, 200 vendors, and, of course, vibrant daffodils. Gloucester’s Main Street comes alive with family fun 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. The 7th Virginia Regiment interpreters will perform and the brand new VA250 Mobile Museum will be on-site.
Mac Arnold Cornbread and Collard Greens Blues Festival
April 12, 2025
Fountain Inn, South Carolina
Enjoy delicious southern comforts while listening to legendary artist, Mac Arnold and the Plate Full of Blues, as well as other blues artists. The event runs from noon to 6 p.m. and features a Jeep Jam, a Spring Market, and different renditions of collard greens, cornbread and other southern fare.
Hardman Historic Site—Kids Old-Fashioned Cooking Experience
April 12, 2025
Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia
Share this experience with the kids or grandkids so they can learn and understand how people cooked 100 years ago using a historic wood stove. An adult must accompany the enrolled child(ren) and lunch comes out of the participants’ cooking experience. The event takes place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Advance registration is required and there is a limit of 20 participants.
Becoming Jane: The Evolution of Dr. Jane Goodall
Through April 19, 2025
Charlotte, North Carolina
This hands-on, transportive multimedia exhibition at Discovery Place showcases the life of Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, founder of the Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace. Explore her early years through a multiscreen experience of fascinating photos and journey through an interactive projection of Tanzania’s Gombe National Park, where Goodall conducted her famous behavioral research on chimpanzees.
MerleFest
April 24-27, 2025
Wilkesboro, North Carolina
This annual music festival features The Avett Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, The War and Treaty, and other talented acts. Enjoy shopping, kids activities, backstage tours, nature walks, and more at this annual event founded in 1988 in memory of Eddy Merle Watson. Multi-day and single-day ticket packages are available.
Blue Ridge Heritage Project Dedication
April 26, 2025, 11 a.m.
Grottoes, Virginia
The Blue Ridge Heritage Project will dedicate its eighth and final monument to the people of Augusta County, Virginia, whose homes and land were acquired for the development of Shenandoah National Park in the 1930s. The monument is located in Grand Caverns Park just outside of Grottoes, Virginia. Families and individuals from the eight Virginia counties whose lives were disrupted by the creation of the park will also be honored.
What wonderful events for celebrating Spring! Thank you for great info!!