this winter...

the monkey house is going to texas to peruse the gulf coast. it was a good season here for the store and judy and i are looking forward to a break and more on-the-road excitement. this year i have purchased a fishing kayak and expect to be questing after finny critters in skinny waters. it will be a change from the style of fishing i am used to in the florida keys, but i am excited about undertaking a new challenge and learning a lot of new techniques. we won't be leaving for another couple of months, but preparations are already underway.

the monkey house needed a bit of repair.. there was a leak in the roof and last years leak in the rear window have both been fixed.. good old randy from ellsworth rv. and new drip edges above each window have been installed as well as a new spigot for the sink. now it is time to cover her up to protect from snow and ice.

it was snowing today for a short period, a hint to what is coming, i'd best get the covers on the monkey house as well as the kayak.

i am looking forward to posting the new adventures here for the duration of the journey this winter. we will be on the road for january, february and march. some exciting!

www.everymilesamemory.com

check it out. pat and cindy manage low key hideaway on cedar key, located on the nature coast of florida. they traveled on the road for four years and have some wonderful photographs and comments concerning life on the highways. we met them when we stayed at their little hideaway, if you are ever in the neighborhood stop in and say hi. do check out their website.. it is really quite interesting.

family reunion...

judy's father is 90 years of age and lives in palm harbor, near tampa. we were in the neighborhood and decided to drop in on chester. strangely enough, judy's siblings had all decided to drop in on chester the same weekend. he was quite surprised. there were another three days of partying. we ate until we nearly burst and drank probably too much but what are family get-togethers all about? after this last hurrah we headed home. time to reflect on all we had seen and done over the last two and a half months. we already have tentative plans for next year. the monkey house functioned as expected and drew much admiring comment. there are a few things to work out but those will be done and next winter's adventure will be even better.we learned a lot on this trip and had a wonderful time. most of all we enjoyed the people we met. at every stop there were warm, wonderful, generous folks ready to help us in any way. nearly every one said what a great idea it was to make such a journey, we wholeheartedly agree.

ok... next to the last stop on this journey...

the villages. if you don't know about this place you should check it out on the internet. they have a website. one hell of a big retirement community, 28,000 acres developed, 0ver 70,000 residents, and 45,000 golf carts. it is truly an amazing place to experience. we were there for three days and nights. we played bocce ball and lived the "villages lifestyle". every night there is live entertainment on two town squares. we saw "rocky andthe rollers" and danced to old time rock and roll. these people may be seniors but they aren't vegatables. there are 12 golf courses in the villages and a club for anything you can imagine. there is even a "village idiots" club with no meetings and no agenda. they gather once or twice a month and do who knows what? remote control sailboats, line dancing, dragon boat rowing, needle point, airgun shooting, billiards, synchronized swimming, you name it.... they have a club for it. it is like being on a cruise all the time, but you have to fix your own food. but if you prefer there are 62 resturants from which to choose. we danced and partied for three days then on to the final stop... judy's family reunion.

after the show...

i had my picture taken with a mermaid.. cool. later that evening judy had her picture taken with a large manatee, the animal that inspired the mermaid legend... how that ever got started, i have no idea, i see little similarity.

weeki wachee springs....

now a state run attraction, weeki wachee is the nation's longest running roadside attraction. how could you not see it? we got there on a rainy day. the place is showing it's age but is still quite nice. the main attraction is the mermaid show that takes place in a natural freshwater spring viewed from an underwater auditorium. an all american attraction dramatizing a hans christian anderson drama, "the little mermaid". if you don't know the story you will by the time you leave. because of the thunderstorms in the area the day was shortened and the last show cancelled, but we could have gotten rain checks. well... maybe next year we will get to see the "mermaid extravaganza" which was the show we missed. it was fun... there is also an animal show with two comedic young women who vamp and show snakes and amphibians, snakes wriggle thru their hair and they make jokes about the toads peeing on them. it seems they could use a writer for their act, but it is interesting to watch.

before we leave cedar key...

you must hear about the "island hotel and restaurant and world famous neptune bar" indeed you must. it is a grand old school hotel, furnished with antiques and murals that date from 1948. the hamburgers in the bar were one of the best meals we had on the trip and the bar crowd was fabulous. mostly locals well behaved and friendly. the rates are reasonable and the ambiance and charm are tops. if you are ever in cedar key don't miss this spot for a burger in the bar. i saw no finer accomodations anywhere.

a few more images of cedar key...

then on to weekie watchee and the mermaids.

an oft photographed old fishing shack, white pelicans, shell mound path, heartbreak acre sign and some rental cabins in cedar key. quaint.

annie's cafe in cedar key.

we had breakfast here, recommended by our hosts at the campsite. annie's was open so we went in. sock monkey found a long lost cousin, bedraggled tho she was he said hello. she lived in annie's garden.

dot's store

while exploring the cedar key environs we came upon dot's store on an off the beaten path byway. dot, a very friendly sweet lady, "can't just sit around doin' nothin' all day." so she opens her litle store to provide for the few locals who need daily necessities. "i can't get no one to deliver 'cause the volume is so low so i go to town to get most of the stuff, pay retail mostly so i don't make any money on the deal. i do it to provide the things my neighbors need mostly. now that he's so sick and can't get around i have to get the supplies we need anyhow so it's really no trouble to keep the store stocked." no trouble indeed. you could buy out all her inventory for $100, but she loves her little enterprise. if you're in the neighborhood stop in and spend a little time, she loves the social aspect of running a store. note the "no smoking" sign. behind judy was a cigarette burning in an ashtray. we bought drinks and some peanut butter crackers and headed on down the road.

the shell mound at cedar key.

the plaque tells the story.. enlarge it to read about it.

one of my favorite places in florida, cedar key...

i hesitate to write about this place but realize there is little point in blogging if the secrets aren't told as much as the other stuff. i love cedar key. it has been here for a couple hundred years or so and seemingly no notice has benn taken of this place, well very little. probably about 800 people live here year-round. on our way to new orleans we drove to cedar key just to see what was at the end of a spur off of highway 19 that went to the coast. we were enchanted and made a note to come back for a stay toward the end of our roadtrip. this is a laid back little village that has more charm than it should. i'll tell a bit about the history just to give you some idea.

cedar key used to be covered by a cedar forest, until eberhard faber took notice and milled all of the trees into lumber and sent it all back to brooklyn, new york, where he had a pencil factory. incidentally, judy's grandmother,on her father's side, worked in the pencil factory in brooklyn, new york, that made pencils out of cedar key cedar. after all of the cedar trees were cut into pencil lumber and a hurricane destroyed the sawmill and almost every other building on cedar key, mr. faber moved his operation elsewhere. since then, (1900 or so) not too much has happened in cedar key. it has been mostly a fishing village, oysters, fish, sponges, etc. since that fateful storm.

there are a couple campgrounds and a few small hotels there for those who wish to stay a spell.. but not a lot of accomodations. there are a number of restaurants and cafes, and a few tour boats that ply the local waters. these suggest to me that cedar key is more of a day trip destination in the summer. it would seem that people who live in the area come to town for a plesant sunday drive and go home for dinner. there are a couple of small museums that speak of a glorious past and a few shops. the world champion clam chowder restaurant is here. there are some very good eats to be had. the half bushel of oysters i bought went nicely on the charcoal gril at our campsite. the oysters were from apalachacola tho, for some reason the local oysters weren't doing so well. had to do with the cold winter i guess. we stayed at "the low key hideaway". four rv sites and five hotel rooms, on the water, gulf side of the road into town. it is a funky little place run by a lovely couple who are full timers taking a break off the road. they have made the run down little place into a real nice place to stay. when the permits are all squared away the tiki bar will be a wonderful place to while away the evening hours while watching the sunset. we woke up one morning to a huge flock of white pelicans chasing mullet in the inlet behind us. the tide was out and the mulet schools were exposed and the pelicans were gorging, quite a sight.

horseshoe beach...

interesting real estate.. a house built to resemble an old sailing ship, and another made from silos. no idea of the price of the ship, but the silos house was $1,500,000.00. both were for sale. the quiet little village claims to have a low crime rate, as exemplified by the police cruiser, and charmed us to no end. quiet during our visit but probably much more populated in the summer. i would like to go back and see it more animated sometime. the cafe owner informed us the ceo of discover card has a home there and wanders around town like common folk. cool...

steinhatchee, florida

ever heard of this place? me either... until we found it at the end of a spur off of us 19 on the gulf coast. nice place tho. we checked into the nature coast rv resort there, a total of 12 sites with a small pond alongside. there are some fishes there who rise to feed on fishfood offered by the owners, and are nabbed in the morning by a marauding osprey. the owner told us of a 25 mile drive over a dirt road that led to another sweet little town, horshoe beach, and we took his recomendation and went there. it was a plesant drive, cold day so we didn't see too much wildlife, but there was a small cemetery, bowleg cemetery, that had two headstones marking three graves, the last one from 1910. someone still maintains it. we had lunch at the horseshoe cafe and had a look around the plesant little village.