issue feature
Places You've Never Been

After two hours on the road, I took a quick left off US-280 into the tiny town of Waverly. Cars lined the street for blocks. I parked mine on the edge of a front yard, gathered my things and prepared to walk to the town festival. Then a man came out of the house I’d parked in front of, I assumed to shoo my friend and I into another parking space. Instead, he gave us beautiful posters advertising the festival we were on our way to.

Before we even arrived, I fell in love with the Old 280 Boogie. I suspect that’s the norm in Waverly, a little town that challenges expectations. The Old 280 Boogie itself is defiant—the 8-year-old festival celebrates 280 being re-routed so it no longer runs through the heart of town.

Now you’d never know Waverly was there if you weren’t looking for it, but it’s a town worth seeking out. People watching here is not what you’d expect at any other small town festival. It’s a mix of Auburn students, families, hipsters and hippies— and judging from the license plates I spotted on the walk in, more than a few folks traveled just as far as we did.

Town of Waverly T-shirts describe it as “a small town where there isn’t much to see, but what you hear sure makes up for it”—a fact supported by the Boogie’s musical lineup. You may not recognize the bands by name (I didn’t), but I bet you’ll leave with a new favorite.

And even though the festival clears out so thoroughly at 5:30 p.m. that you’re left wondering if the whole thing was a musical mirage, good times resume an hour later during an evening show in the Standard Deluxe warehouse. I’ll confess that I’ve read through performances by bigger acts at bigger festivals, but I didn’t get through more than three pages during the Boogie.

When I got too antsy to lie in the spring sunshine, I made several trips to the High Corner Co-op, perusing a selection of art and unique Tshirts while still enjoying whichever band was on stage at the moment. Booths offering a variety of wares lined the town’s main street, and an enthusiastic emcee at the cake walk welcomed festival goers to the fun. The food, too, is more than you’d expect.

I dined on surprisingly tasty catfish fingers and fries, while my friend munched on an organic salad and solicited local food tips from the farmer who grew the salad’s components. At what other festival would you find that culinary combination?

The music and camaraderie are almost enough to make a Bama grad, city girl think that living 11 miles outside of Auburn isn’t such a bad idea. That’s just one more surprise in a town I’m learning to expect them from.

If you graduated from the University of Alabama in the last 15 years or so, you likely spotted Faunsdale on this list and immediately knew we’d be talking about the Alabama Crawfish Festival.

If you’re not a ‘Bama grad or former Tuscaloosa resident, you probably read Faunsdale and asked yourself, “Where is that?!” At least, that’s the reaction I’ve noticed whenever I mention the festival that drew my grad school buddies from our normal college city routine to a tiny town an hour south of Tuscaloosa.

Every spring my friend Lance—our loveable, friendly resident redneck—would send an email to 15 of our friends, rallying people for a day of crawfish, beer, country music and bull riding. One year, they even brought beer and tailgated outside the festival, watching motorcycles drive by. In other words, this ain’t no Schaeffer Eye Center Crawfish Boil.

You won’t see flashy bands playing at the heart of this town. But it’s a heckuva lot of fun. People spread out behind Ca-John’s Faunsdale Bar and Grill, squatting on milk crates and bending over bowls of etouffee and boxes of crawfish. It’s all about the food early Friday afternoon, but come evening the program is crammed full.

Friday night includes a concert plus a full menu at the restaurant. Saturdays are packed out, with music from noon till midnight, a crawfish eating contest, line dancing and more. Vendors run booths throughout the weekend, offering arts and crafts, snow cones, air brushed T-shirts and other small town festival staples.

“This is nicer than the crawfish boils I’ve been to,” my friend Elisa exclaimed, without irony, as we stooped over a spigot to wash our hands free of the grime a pound of crawfish leaves behind. Nice? Maybe not. But if down home is your thing, Faunsdale’s annual event is a mustdo.

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