By Mike Wendland, F426141
December 2015
I’ve written before about our travel style, which might best be described as serendipity, or just seeing what we come across and stopping whenever something interests us. I’ve shared how every place we’ve been — and I really mean every place — has a story to tell, interesting things to see if you just take the time.
People email us questions about how this actually works out, so the other week, after a reader wanted some pointers, we came up with an idea. Stop at the next city we go through and make it a case study in serendipity.
We happened to be northbound on Interstate 75, an hour or so north of the Florida line. Perry, Georgia, was the next exit. “Okay,” we said. “Let’s do it.” It was about 8:30 in the morning, and right at our exit was a Holiday Inn Express.
We weren’t seeking a room. We were seeking some ideas. And we found them in one of those racks every hotel seems to have just inside the front door, racks stuffed with brochures and pamphlets promoting tourist attractions. I grabbed a handful and returned to our motorhome out in the parking lot. Five minutes of reading gave us an itinerary — downtown.
Perry is the county seat of Houston County (pronounced “HOUSE-tun”). Perry was founded in 1823 as Wattsville, but the name later was changed to honor Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, a hero of the War of 1812.
Among early travelers, it was best known for The New Perry Hotel, built in 1870 and rebuilt in 1925, which was a landmark for many Florida tourists who took the old Route 41 south before I-75 was built. That became our first stop.
We love going through historic buildings, but, alas, it wasn’t to be. It was closed. Shuttered. Recently sold, it was being renovated, said a sign out front. Once it was the center for social, business, and civic life throughout the region, an icon of Southern culture and the town itself. But it now sits alone and forlorn. If any renovation was taking place at the time of our visit, we sure couldn’t tell.
So, we scratched The New Perry Hotel off our list. Instead, we grabbed the camera and walked to the nearby historic downtown area. This was more like it. Shops were just opening, Shop owners were cheerfully greeting passersby. Several were sweeping the shaded brick sidewalk. We window-shopped at antique stores, noted a couple of restaurants that looked promising, and read the posters for various civic and cultural happenings.
As I was walking up and down the street taking photos, I spotted some people gathering outside the downtown courthouse, including a military honor guard. We made our way there and stopped to notice a tall monument commemorating Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War. We have seen monuments like this throughout the South, and despite the controversy raging over the Confederate flag, you still see plenty of the flags in the South. Highway signs urging people to use their seatbelts in Georgia bear the Confederate flag symbol.
We learned that people were gathering for a prayer meeting, to honor those who died in another cataclysmic event for the United States — the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Our visit to Perry happened to be on Patriot Day, and so we went to the motorhome and brought out some folding chairs to join those assembling on the courthouse lawn. First responders from Perry — police officers, firefighters, sheriff’s deputies, and paramedics — were the guests of honor. Civic leaders and pastors from various churches stepped up to a portable podium in front of the courthouse to offer prayers for them and for the nation. It was a deeply moving ceremony, and afterward several locals came up to introduce themselves to us. Jennifer even was interviewed by a local newspaper reporter.
We headed back downtown and chose The Swanson restaurant, located in a beautifully restored 200-year-old building. The Swanson specializes in down-home Southern cooking, with menu items such as collard greens, fried green tomatoes, lima beans, and bread pudding. The Swanson receives five stars from us. I went with meatloaf and sweet potatoes. Jennifer chose salmon with a squash casserole. We were stunned by how good it was, agreeing it was one of the best restaurants we have visited all year, anywhere.
After lunch, we made our way to the Georgia Artisan Center, located off I-75, a few blocks from downtown in space shared by the town’s welcome center. Here, folk art, crafts, carvings, and work created by Georgia artisans are on display and available for purchase. Jennifer bought some early Christmas gifts for our kids, and I talked with the welcome center staffers, who suggested two other places to visit.
Both, it turned out, were right across the road.
Perry’s main claim to fame these days is being home to the Georgia National Fair, one of the nation’s largest, held every October at the Georgia National Fairgrounds & Agricenter.
“Too bad it’s not fair time,” I lamented while talking with the volunteer behind the welcome center desk.
“Yes, but I bet if you go over there right now, you’ll find lots of things going on. It’s used all the time,” the volunteer replied.
Sure enough, we found a lot of cars clustered around one building. An auction for Mennonite relief work was being held. The Mennonites send relief teams all across the United States to help in times of disaster, and the auction, it turns out, is one of their main fundraisers. Jennifer was thrilled to see the display of beautifully intricate Mennonite quilts. Some were more than 100 years old. Others were new, taking longer than a year to create. No two were alike, and the colors and designs were gorgeous.
At another end of the massive fairgrounds complex, we found an equestrian competition under way. And not just any competition, but the Heart of Dixie Reining Horse Association “Fall Slide” event.
“What is reining?” I asked a smiling cowboy who was leading a beautiful mare.
“Reining horses are the ninjas of the sports world,” he said. “Just go watch and see if you don’t agree.”
Specifically, the sport of reining is a riding competition where the riders guide the horses through a precise pattern of circles, spins, and stops. All work is done at the lope (a slow, relaxed version of the horse gait commonly known as the canter), or the gallop (the fastest of the horse gaits).
Wow. Reining is designed to test the athletic ability of a ranch-type horse and its rider. We spent two hours watching the riders and their horses compete. We would have stayed longer, but by now it was 4:00 in the afternoon, and the second place we needed to check out at the Georgia National Fairgrounds & Agricenter would be closing in an hour.
The Go Fish Education Center is a museum and an aquarium that, through displays and exhibits, teaches visitors about the 4,000 miles of trout streams, 12,000 miles of warm-water streams, and more than half a million acres of impoundments that make fishing a $1 billion industry in Georgia.
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t expecting much. As usual, I was wrong. It is an amazing place, one of the best aquariums I have ever visited. The center closes at 5:00 p.m., and we had only an hour to see it. Fortunately, we were about the only customers, so we had the undivided attention of some of the center’s naturalists and guides, and they showed us everything except the pond out back where you can actually do some fishing.
The facility even has a couple of interactive exhibits. One simulates a salt-water fishing trip, and the catching and landing of one of the big trophy fish along Georgia’s Atlantic coastline. The other shows what it’s like to catch a monster Georgia largemouth bass.
The Go Fish Education Center, located near the eastern gate of the fairgrounds complex, in itself makes a trip to Perry worthwhile. We plan a return visit next time we are in the area, which probably will be in March 2016 when FMCA hosts its 93rd Family Reunion and Motorhome Showcase event there.
As we left the Go Fish museum, it was well after 5:00 (they kindly kept it open a few minutes for us to finish our tour). It was a Friday night in September, and Friday night down South means high school football.
So, we attended a high school game on the field of the Westfield School, a private academy. High school football in the South is perhaps the leading social event of the week. The whole town comes out. Games start with prayer; faith, as we witnessed at the courthouse ceremony downtown earlier that day, is a major part of the social fabric that ties folks together down there.
At halftime, the Westfield fans and the fans from the visitor’s team emptied the stands and — together — walked around the field in honor of a young local girl who had recently lost her battle with cancer. Then the fans went back to the stands, and the teams came back out and resumed their gridiron battle.
And so ended our day in Perry, about 12 hours in all, jam-packed with memories of interesting places and people.
We had several local campgrounds to choose from if we had wanted to stay overnight. Instead, we just felt like driving, so off we went, headed north to yet another adventure.
So, that’s how it works. Serendipity travel, proving yet again, as I said above, every place has a story.