“The hotel will be built and in short order. There is no doubt about that… it will be a building worthy of the city.” – Bank of Southwestern Georgia President Major Moses Spear, discussing the plans for building the Windsor Hotel

Two years ago, my friend and I went on a road trip for my birthday across Georgia where we visited several state parks. I wanted to explore somewhere new and one of my goals is to eventually take a road trip across the US, so this seemed like a great way to get a sense of how to plan that kind of a journey. We went to DeSoto Falls, Cloudland Canyon, Amicalola Falls, Savannah, and Stephen C. Foster State Park and jokingly called the trip 2 Blondes Chasing Waterfalls since quite a few of the parks we choose had waterfalls that we hiked to. Savannah was included because a few years back we had taken a trip to Savannah as a bachelorette trip for her and as a birthday trip for me and all of our friends had loved the entire experience. Stephen C. Foster State Park was included because it’s a dark park and I have a bucket list of dark parks I wanted to visit to see the stars – Stephen C. Foster was the closest to where I lived so it made sense to go ahead and take that opportunity.

This post is going to review day one of of our follow up trip – 2 Blondes, 2 Waterfalls. This year I decided to take another Georgia birthday road trip to see some new parks after discovering that one called Providence Canyon existed. I invited my friend from the first trip and came up with an itinerary and places to stay and we eagerly anticipated the start of the trip since the last one had been such a great balance of hiking in the morning and reading in the afternoons when it was raining. Unfortunately, day 1 which was supposed to start with the hike at Providence Canyon did not get off to a great start and instead we realized a few days out that we would be dealing with rain on the first day of the trip. We did not let that deter us – we knew that we would be able to postpone the trip to the next morning – and instead drove straight to our hotel for the night instead of stopping at the park. The hotel is not far from Jimmy Carter’s childhood farm which we passed on the way and has had Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter stay it it many times throughout the years and also had F.D. Roosevelt stay in the past, so unsurprisingly they have suites or board rooms named after all three. They have a tribute to Charles Lindbergh since he took flight from Americus, Georgia as well. The hotel is the Windsor Hotel and it is a five-story Victorian mansion built in 1892.

When we arrived, it was right at the end of the special Mother’s Day brunch they have at their Rosemary & Thyme restaurant, so we were lucky that most of the guests had left and there was ample parking available. We brought in the items we would need for the night and I checked us in before we made our way to the room which was on the third floor. Once we had our stuff settled, we made ourselves sandwiches for lunch in the room before heading out to explore the hotel a bit.

The lobby of the hotel is a three story atrium with two chandeliers that hang from the ceiling. We would later learn from our very helpful desk clerk Indiana that these are not the original chandeliers since they ended up crashing through the floor when the hotel was closed between 1974 and its renovation and reopening in 1990. They are from the same time period, however, so still fit the overall aesthetic of the building. There is quite a few examples of wallpaper that was designed for the hotel and are unique to the hotel which I have shared below.

After we took some initial pictures, we walked down to the 1800 Mexican restaurant which was just down the street since the restaurants in the hotel were closed for the rest of the day for mother’s day. I definitely want to go back for another visit so we can see Floyd’s Bar, named after one of the prior elevator operator/bellman at the hotel (ironic since he did not drink). The Mexican restaurant was one of the few open and recommended by the desk clerk for its cheese dip so we ended up bringing her back some on our way back. During our stay there, we found out that she runs the history and ghost tours for the hotel, and since it was a slow night she shared some of the history and ghost stories with us and let us view the binder of experiences guests have had with the ghosts. We spent a lot of time chatting and learning a lot about the hotel and I highly recommend anyone interested in staying and having a tour giving the hotel a call on its local number and requesting to speak with Indiana to get one scheduled!

Overall, we fully enjoyed our stay at the Windsor Hotel and we did eat at Rosemary & Thyme the following morning for breakfast before heading out to the start of our day 2 part of the trip – finally seeing Providence Canyon State Park!