Unfortunately, Daniel was feeling a little under the weather but a healthy concoction of Abby and antibiotics and cortisone has been helping knock his bronchitis on the head ...
Perry, in particular, went all out in honour of the Dogwood and had a three-day festival which involved street stalls, illuminated hot air balloons at dusk, diving "dock dogs", school dancing troupes, a ventriloquist, rides, and more.
Mazzie, Daniel and I ventured down to Perry on the Friday for a sneak peek. There wasn't a lot going on but we did have coffee at the Coffee Cup - a "real" coffee shop, though Mazzie might argue it wasn't the best coffee she's ever had ... Just wait, Mazzie!! We'll come back in a couple of weeks and you may have adjusted your palate and expectations by then!
While we drank coffee and shared a cinnamon scroll, Daniel tried a Dogwood Cookie.
We did enjoy a very quiet trot around the the Perry Arts Centre where we viewed some of the local artists' handiwork - "don't touch" is a tricky one for a toddler to grasp, especially when the artwork is so inviting!!!
Pottery and bling treasure chest
Notwithstanding the random use of apostrophes, this was a very cute little rural scene made from some kind of modeling clay.
Luckily, the scrap metal horse outside the Arts Centre had no such admonishments about keeping one's mits to oneself!!
After our recce on the Friday, we returned to Perry on Sunday, with Isabella, so she could enjoy some of the festivities. The Perry Dogwood Festival was spread across two locations - the main streets of Perry and the showgrounds, but as we'd been to Macon's Cherry Blossom Festival at its showground, we thought we'd had enough of fairground rides and junk food, and opted for the main street activities instead.
Shop front dogwood wreaths ... There's a wreath for everything here!!
... And flags!
The kids lovvvvvved the Dock Dogs event, which came complete with a fast-talking, cool dude on a mic, explaining the jumps, timing and the various competitors' credentials. Some of the doggies and their mums/dads/sisters/brothers had travelled from Florida or Atlanta for the event, so it is clearly not just a one off - much like a Red Bull Flugtag for doggies. Pity Dave wasn't in town to appreciate and take note of their form and technique as they ran up and dove off a ramp to retrieve their rather curiously shaped objects.
Daniel, poor fellow, was still feeling a little seedy, but being sick made him relatively quiet and considerably more malleable, so it wasn't all bad!!
After the doggies, we watched some people - well, I watched some people who were watching some other people!!
And this is what they were watching ... A still picture doesn't do them justice but if you can imagine these kids, and a number of others before and after these ones, skipping in time to music - "Happy", I think was on at the time, and they were great!!
There was a whole local school troupe of them and they did a variety of skipping tricks. Before the skipping kids were the dancing girls with lots of sparkly ribbons and leotards - Isabella was enthralled!!
For lunch, and there has to be a lunch, we had pulled pork sandwiches ... from a van. The pulled pork sandwiches were ok but all meat and bread with nary a leaf or other vegetable matter in sight. Talk about pork overload ...
As mentioned previously, this is the land of hell and brimstone, with baptist churches on every second block. So for something different, Mazzie and I ventured into Macon for some retail therapy and to investigate a small but historically significant synagogue. Temple Beth Israel is a 150 year old progressive (liberal or non orthodox) synagogue at the top of one of Macon's loveliest streets, Cherry Street.
The main street entrance was closed, so we wanderd around the back where we bumped into two ladies laden with stacks of pots and pans - they'd just cleaned up after the Passover Feast from two nights before, but one of them, Ann, graciously offered to give us a tour of the beautiful and elegantly ornate sanctuary. We mentioned our shared cultural connections and were made to feel very welcome.
Ann, despite being sleep deprived, shared a few fascinating and very personal and somewhat random tidbits about herself and her involvement with the synagogue: she was a Linguistics major but is now an attorney; she used to teach Hebrew at the Sunday School; she had a younger boyfriend for a short while but came to her senses and realised it was purely "lust"; she lost a son in Iraq and made a US general cry when she met him and he remembered her son ... So filled with passion and emotion, and the funniest thing she said after asking us how we liked the South, was that she (who is originally from a northern state) finds the people down here very "phoney baloney"!!! Bless her heart!!
It was a serendipitous encounter but we didn't mention our piggy indulgences ... didn't want to ruin a beautiful moment!!
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