Traveling with children is tough. Figuring out what to do when you’ve scheduled a trip during a rainy week can leave even in the steeliest parents pulling their hair out.
Fortunately, the Dan River Basin is loaded with options to keep children happy and parents sane during extended periods of rainy weather.
In North Carolina
Roll-A-Bout Skating Center
1023 S. Van Buren Rd., Eden, NC 27288
Phone: 336-627-5173
Go skating on weekends or on specially advertised weeknights, including a $1 “cheap skate” on Wednesdays. Check the website or call for special events and deals.
Palace Pointe Family Entertainment Center
5050 Durham Rd., Roxboro, NC 27574
Phone: 336-598-5050
Palace Pointe offers an array of family fun: bowling, pool tables, roller skating, bumper cars, arcade, and eight movie theaters, as well as a candy store, diner, and pub. Better yet: It’s open seven days a week.
In Virginia
Uptown Pinball
35 E Church St., Martinsville, VA 24112
Phone: 276-224-7139
Parents will have just as much fun as the kids at Uptown Pinball, home of 5 of the top 10 pinball machines ever made, including Monster Bash, Medieval Madness, and Lord of the Rings. The museum has 27 pinball machines, skee ball, air hockey, racing games, and more.
Danville Science Center
677 Craghead St., Danville, VA 24541
Phone: 434-791-5160
Housed in a renovated Victorian train station, the Science Center is built around interactive exhibits that allow kids to learn about physics, geology, and biology by doing. In the spring, there’s a butterfly station.
Virginia Museum of Natural History
21 Starling Ave., Martinsville, VA 24112
Phone: 276-666-8600
The first thing that greets visitors to this museum is a hall filled with an assortment of ancient creatures, from Pteranadon the flying reptile to a 140-million-year-old Allosaurus and a 14-million year old baleen whale specimen. Exhibits change regularly, and working scientists often are available to answer questions.
Wood Brothers Racing Museum
21 Performance Dr., Stuart, VA 24171
Phone: 276-694-2121
The Woods Brothers Racing team formed in 1950, and has blazed a road into stock-car racing history, with the team’s No. 21 car becoming as legendary as the Petty No. 43 or the Earnhardt No. 3 cars. The team invented the pit stop as we know it, and its drivers have included Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts, Junior Johnson, Cale Yarborough, Donnie Allison, Davey Allison, Kyle Petty, Dale Jarrett, Bill Elliott, Trevor Bayne, and Ryan Blaney. The museum includes a ton of cars, uniforms, and equipment that car-loving kids will love.